MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

(Photo: mdfriendofhillary)

In the wake of the release of 46 hours of secretly recorded tapes revealing that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York consciously backed off regulating Wall Street, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for the Senate to investigate. The tapes were released to NPR's "This American Life" host Ira Glass, and unveiled on a show that aired September 26.

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In a September 27 entry on her official Facebook page, Warren wrote:

When regulators care more about protecting big banks from accountability than they do about protecting the American people from risky and illegal behavior on Wall Street, it threatens our whole economy. We learned this the hard way in 2008. Congress must hold oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by yesterday's whistleblower report when it returns in November - because it's our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs.

Carmen Segarra, the whistleblower who revealed the tapes, was subsequently fired from her job at the Fed. Segarra has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the Federal Reserve. One of the major reasons she believes that she was dismissed from her job, according to ProPublica, was that she would not comply with the New York Fed's deference to Goldman Sachs. In specific, Pro Public reports:

Hired by the Fed as a legal and compliance specialist, she was told to pay particular attention to how Goldman was complying with the Fed's requirements on conflicts of interest.

Segarra says she was fired after she found that Goldman lacked an adequate company-wide policy to manage conflicts of interest — and after her superiors urged her to change this finding and she refused.

Sen. Warren has been a longtime critic of US regulatory agencies' negligence in overseeing the financial industry. In a May 2014 letter to President Obama - cosigned by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) - Warren signaled her concern about the Fed by encouraging the appointment of overseers who place a priority on regulatory enforcement:

The management of the nation's monetary policy is one of the most important duties of the Board, but missteps on financial stability can overwhelm the careful work that the Federal Reserve engages in on monetary policy and bring about devastating harm to the economy. As the events of 2008 showed, when the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators failed to engage in appropriate financial regulation, the results were the worst financial crisis in 80 years, a massive bailout of the global financial system by U.S. taxpayers, and a Great Recession that left tens of millions unemployed and eliminated $19 trillion in household wealth. Financial regulation and oversight obligations must be front and central to the Board's work now and going forward, which should be reflected in the new makeup of the Board.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act solidified the importance of financial regulation and systemic stability for the work of the Board. Moreover, in the aftermath of this crisis, significant gaps in oversight have meant that few have been held sufficiently accountable.

"Few have been held sufficiently accountable" is a criticism that Warren often makes about the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice in regards to the financial industry.

Perhaps if Warren, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, is able to get a hearing scheduled on Carmen Segarra's evidence of Fed bias toward Wall Street, we will learn why a conscientious bank examiner was fired while Goldman Sachs continues to obtain special treatment.

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