by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade:
In seven of the past nine days, a Wall Street Journal article has been published attacking the culture of the bank regulator, the FDIC, and/or its Chairman, Martin Gruenberg, a Democrat and Biden nominee. The cumulative total of this attack so far is eight articles bylined by Rebecca Ballhaus (one was co-bylined with Andrew Ackerman); an unsigned Wall Street Journal video; and a podcast interview with Rebecca Ballhaus on her reporting about the FDIC and Gruenberg.
According to one Ballhaus article, the Wall Street Journal investigation included “interviews with more than 100 current and former employees, including more than 20 women who quit.”
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
The thrust of the unprecedented volume of articles in such a short span of time is that a culture of sexual harassment has existed for years at the FDIC, under both Republican and Democratic leadership. But after more than 100 interviews, the worst thing Bellhaus has come up with thus far regarding Gruenberg’s personal conduct is that he yelled at a female colleague for not consulting with him prior to scheduling his itinerary.
The sexual harassment complaints are no doubt real and there are likely more serious ones hidden away with settlement payments and non-disclosure agreements. That’s because the FDIC sends teams of male-dominated bank examiners off to far-flung cities to examine banks and the teams live in the same hotel and socialize for extended periods.
According to the reporting thus far, the worst of the sexual harassment complaints involving the FDIC run along these lines:
“Women recounted instances of being sent naked photos from senior bank examiners, hearing that their male supervisors were visiting strip clubs with male colleagues and being subjected to discussions of how women needed to use sex to get ahead at the FDIC. One woman said a male colleague followed her back to her hotel room during a training trip. Another woman said a colleague complained to her that he wasn’t having enough sex and said: “Obviously if I walked into this office and you were naked, I’d f— you right here.”
None of the allegations thus far involve allegations of sexual assault or rape – allegations that have been made by more than a dozen women against Donald Trump – the leading Republican contender for President of the United States.
We used the internal search function at the Wall Street Journal as well as Google Search to check on the Journal’s coverage of the sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. We found just six articles in the past four years involving Donald Trump and an allegation of sexual assault. That’s two articles less than have appeared in the past nine days about Gruenberg and the FDIC where no allegations of sexual assault or rape have yet to be made.
So what’s really going on here?
Gruenberg is aggressively pursuing higher capital rules for the mega banks on Wall Street which pose systemic risk to the U.S. banking system. (No community bank would be impacted by the proposed capital rules.) Toppling Gruenberg from the Chairmanship of the FDIC would leave an evenly split vote by its Board when the FDIC votes on the new capital rules, with two Republican votes and two Democrat votes. Since it takes a majority vote to finalize a rule, the new capital rules would very likely not go forward – an outcome that Wall Street’s mega banks have heavily lobbied for and bankrolled with millions of dollars.
There is also some evidence that certain Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee are less than objective parties in efforts to discredit Gruenberg.
The first Wall Street Journal article on the FDIC/Gruenberg matter appeared in print on November 14 under the headline “Sex, Booze and Bank Regulation.” Conveniently, the Senate Banking Committee had scheduled a hearing that same day with federal banking regulators, including Gruenberg.
Read More @ WallStOnParade.com
