Eliot Spitzer Is Getting Really Shrill!

Because the bastards got clean away with it, and they will do it again!:

So let's talk for a moment about the case against Ken Langone and his role on the NYSE Compensation Committee. The New York Stock Exchange, at the time a not-for-profit, paid its CEO Dick Grasso more than $200 million over a series of years. A report done for the board of the Exchange by Dan Webb, one of the most respected prosecutors in the nation, found that Grasso was overpaid by at least $144 million, and that Langone and the compensation committee handled the matter improperly!

...That Grasso was paid in excess of $200 million by a board composed of the CEOs of the very companies he was supposed to regulate is overwhelming evidence of just how corrupted our corporate governance system had become, and remains. The behavior of the New York Stock Exchange board during this era is a perfect demonstration of the interlocking conflicts of interest and corruption that permeated our corporate leadership.

...The record here is crystal clear: AIG and Hank Greenberg were charged by the New York Attorney General's Office—while I was attorney general—with fraud and deceptive accounting practices. The company settled for $1.64 billion, at the time the largest payment in history.

...After invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying, Greenberg settled with the SEC for $15 million. And a federal judge, in a written opinion, found evidence that the conspiracy to deceive investors originated with Greenberg. Even CNBC covered Greenberg's settlement by saying "Ex-AIG CEO Greenberg settles fraud charges with SEC."

So Mr. Langone, despite your effort to talk about everything other than the facts of these cases, facts matter. These cases were absolutely correct, important, and went to the heart of the type of corporate fraud and defalcation that very nearly destroyed our economy.