As this morning the Senate likely will pass an extension of unemployment benefits for people who can't find work, many of whom are unemployed because a cabal of grifters broke the national economy and stole most of the pieces, one of the primary grifthouses has cut a plea deal with the Justice Department on charges that it enabled one of the biggest fraudsin American history.

JPMorgan had a unique window into Mr. Madoff's scheme, serving as his primary bank for more than two decades. In a document outlining the bank's wrongdoing, prosecutors argued that "the Madoff Ponzi scheme was conducted almost exclusively through" various accounts "held at JPMorgan." On two occasions, in 2007 and 2008, JPMorgan's own computer system raised red flags about Mr. Madoff, according to prosecutors. But both times, prosecutors say, JPMorgan employees "closed the alerts with a notation that the transactions did not appear to be unusual for the account in comparison to the account's prior activity." In a statement on Tuesday, a JPMorgan spokesman acknowledged that the bank "could have done a better job pulling together various pieces of information and concerns about Madoff from different parts of the bank over time."

The reason, of course, was that they didn't want to. As long as the scam was working, as long as Madoff, the crook, was flush, the people at JPMorgan didn't care if Bernie was selling meth over the counter in the main lobby.

In the case of Mr. Madoff, prosecutors argued in a 19-page statement of facts that JPMorgan acknowledged, the bank alerted British authorities in October 2008 that his investment returns were "so consistently and significantly ahead of its peers" that they must be "too good to be true." But JPMorgan never provided a similar warning to authorities in Washington, a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act.

It is infuriating that the bank seemed to be concerned with how it stood with the British, but that it also looked upon the United States -- with no little justification -- as a target-rich environment for major fraud, a thieves paradise that JPMorgan helped create and in which it had complete confidence, until Madoff's fraud became so massive as to become legally and politically untenable. So now we have a fine, some of which will go to Madoff's victims, which is a good thing. But, again, the crimes that nearly destroyed the economy, and that created the grinding existential uncertainty that the Congress is attempting to address, remain anonymous, lost on a balance sheet in which fines and "deferred prosecutions" are simply cold entries. The criminals remain as faceless as their victims are. Only the damage remains.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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