Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,
On October 14th I wrote to you about Bank of America @BankofAmerica.
You did not answer. 3.6 million Americans did.
I want to tell you what that looked like from where I sit, because I do not think Washington understands it yet. The messages did not come from one side. They came from Republicans and Democrats, from veterans and nurses and small business owners, from people who have not agreed with each other about anything in a decade. They all said a version of the same sentence. We have had enough.
That is what a national security issue looks like when it finally breaks through. It does not pick a party. It belongs to everyone who has a kid, a bank account, or a flag on the porch.
So let me be plain about my concern. I am worried that nothing is going to happen. The fine has been announced. The press cycle is already turning. In a few weeks the number will be forgotten and the bank will be back to business. I have watched this exact sequence play out before, and I am writing to you now, while there is still a window, because once that window closes it does not reopen.
I am also widening this letter, because Treasury does not act alone.
To the Department of Justice @TheJusticeDept and to FBI Director Kash Patel @FBIDirectorKash:
Director Patel, you were not in the chair when this happened, so I want you to hear it from me directly. In 2011 I walked into the FBI with everything I had on HSBC. Not a tip. Boxes. Names, account numbers, transaction records, internal emails. Agents worked that evidence for over a year. I trusted them, and I still believe they wanted to do their jobs.
Then the settlement was announced. $1.9 billion. I called the agents and asked the only question that mattered. When do you raid the building and when are the arrests?
Their answer was four words. Our hands are tied.
I have thought about those four words every day since. Not because the agents failed me. Because somebody above them decided that a bank was too important to treat like a defendant. That decision was made quietly, by people whose names I will never know, and it has been made again every time since. Director Patel, you now have the authority to make a different one.
I remember the words carved into the stone outside the federal building in Philadelphia the day I walked in to report @HSBC: justice is the defense of our liberty. I believed that. I still want to. But a justice system that handcuffs a dealer on the corner and sends a bank a bill is not defending anyone’s liberty. It is choosing whose liberty counts.
To Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America @BankofAmerica:
Mr. Moynihan, your bank just agreed to pay $1.2 billion for failures that regulators called willful. I have a few questions, and the 3.6 million people reading this would like the answers too.
Who was fired?
Not reassigned. Not retired early with a package. Fired, by name, for the conduct the government described.
What has actually changed in your anti money laundering program? Not the budget line. Not the consultant’s slide deck. What is different today about how an alert gets cleared and who is allowed to say stop?
Were there any consequences inside the building at all? Or did this land the way it landed at HSBC bank, as a line item?
And how much is your bonus this year?
I ask because I know what it costs a compliance officer to raise his hand inside a bank like yours. I would like to know what it cost anyone at the top. Do you even care? I am asking sincerely. I would like to be wrong.
Here is what I did about all of this, and why it matters to this letter. After the government declined to help me or any of the whistleblowers I have met since, I built the thing I wished had existed. Tactical Rabbit is a private intelligence agency. We find the truth, we prove it, and we put it in the hands of people who will act on it. I made a decision a long time ago that if the government would not stop the next HSBC, I would.
So to anyone inside a bank reading this who is looking at something they know is wrong: if your bank will not act, and the government will not act, come to me. I will get the truth to the public. That is not a threat. It is a promise I have already kept once.
Mr. Secretary, Director Patel, the Department of Justice, and Mr. Moynihan: four addresses, one question. Will anyone be held accountable?
Not fined. Not suspended. Not asked to attend training. Accountable.
Please end the cycle of too big to jail. I will not stop until there is change, and neither will the millions of Americans standing behind this letter. Answer them.
We need a banker in jail.
Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder, Tactical Rabbit
Terrible tragedy here.
On April 7, former USMC Sgt. Nik Hutto was struck and killed on I-55 by an uninsured, unlicensed illegal driving drunk.
Nik's killer shouldn't be back on the streets, but a judge will decide if he will be released pending trial on April 30.
Please RT.
Hello obesity nigga @RickRoss . My friend send me this picture. I'm most impress. Why? My grandmother in China have pig. She work very hard feed pig. Make it most fat so she sell pig meat make money. This pig be most fat. But still more skinny than you.
My grandmother see you, then she love you. Why? She be most impress how you be so fat. Please teach how you become giant obesity nigga. I then tell my grandmother. She use your wisdom raise more obesity pig. Make more money. I appreciate your obesity wisdom.
Everyone, this is Jayden Perkins.
He was 11 years old.
He died trying to protect his pregnant mother from her boyfriend while he was assaulting her. The boyfriend stabbed Jayden to death. He had been released on parole the day before.
BLM isn’t going to march for him.
Biden isn’t going to call his mother.
That useless and incompetent mayor over in Chicago probably couldn’t care less.
Sharpton isn’t going to go to Chicago and present a word salad while making sure every camera in the place is focused squarely on him.
His death is simply going to be seen as “business as usual.”
That needs to change. Now. Right now. His life mattered.
Vote differently in Chicago. Vote differently in New York. Vote differently every place where these deaths aren’t seen.
Rest in peace, little man. You deserved so much more.
Might want to buckle up for this one
S/O @QuiverQuant for the find
Pictured below is Rep. Sean Casten, a Democrat from IL
Over the past three years, he's bought $350K of bonds in a carbon removal company, MYNO Carbon
Aside from it being weird he bought bonds, here's where it gets hairy
1) Sean Casten sits on House Climate Crisis Committee
2) He has actively worked on energy legislation that directly impacts the company
3) His father literally is the CHAIR of the board of MYNO Carbon
And if that wasn't enough, he also violated the stock act by disclosing these trades over three years late
His fine? $500
Unreal
As more and more of your life is on your handset, keeping it secure becomes an even bigger headache.
Here are the three things you need to know about smartphone security: https://t.co/nmeMKiGgws
Presented by @ComcastBusiness