More Than 300,000 Demand Obama Repudiate Holder’s “Too Big to Jail” Remarks

Today activists in more than a dozen cities across the country are delivering more than 330,000 signatures to U.S. Department of Justice offices calling on the Obama Administration to reject Eric Holder's declaration that some financial institutions are too big to jail.

In reaction to Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony on March 6 – where he admitted that, in the administration's view, some banks are too large to prosecute – the Campaign for America’s Future, MoveOn’s online petition platform SignOn.org, CREDO Action, Home Defenders League, Campaign for a Fair Settlement, and CourageCampaign.org launched petitions demanding the Obama Administration repudiate Holder’s ridiculous assertion. (The Campaign for America’s Future’s petition is here.)

“For years, the Obama Administration has been pummeled for failing to bring criminal charges against a single major Wall Street bank or a single leading Wall Street banker for what the FBI termed an `epidemic of fraud’ that blew up the entire economy. Investigations revealed the banks committed routine fraud in peddling mortgage securities they knew were garbage, trampled basic property laws, laundered money from Iran, Libya and Mexican drug lords, conspired to game the basic measure of interest rates and more,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, who criticized the administration’s stance in a post on OurFuture.org. “Yet, time after time, the Justice Department and regulatory agencies settled for sweetheart deals, with no admission of guilt, no banker held accountable, and fines that were the equivalent in earnings of a speeding ticket to the average family.”

“More than a quarter million Americans have come together to declare that no one should be above the law – and especially not the Wall Street bankers who crashed the economy. Activists across the country are demanding accountability from the nation’s largest financial institutions that were bailed out using trillions of taxpayer dollars,” said Brian Kettenring, executive director of the Leadership Center for the Common Good. “They’re calling on President Obama to demand justice for the millions of homeowners harmed by the big banks’ criminal activities, and on Attorney General Holder to either do his job or step down.”

"From Lanny Breuer to Eric Holder, the top cops at the Justice Department have simply refused to hold banks accountable for criminal behavior," said Becky Bond, Political Director for CREDO. "And now Attorney General Holder has actually come out and admitted that in his opinion the banks are simply too big to jail. If he won't prosecute, he should resign."

“As we did in our successful campaign for the landmark California Homeowner Bill of Rights, we refuse to accept that banks are somehow above the law,” said Rick Jacobs, head of CourageCampaign.org. “When Big Banks are allowed to circumvent real justice, whether they’ve laundered money for drug cartels or illegally foreclosed on homes, they represent a clear and present danger to the economy.”

Members of MoveOn, Credo Action, Home Defenders League, Campaign for a Fair Settlement, Courage Campaign and others are delivering petitions to U.S. Department of Justice's offices in a dozen cities, including Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Little Rock, Ark; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Sacramento, Calif., and St. Louis.

Also, the Campaign for a Fair Settlement is releasing a new report, “Wall Street Record Threatens Obama Legacy,” documenting the Administration’s failure to hold Wall Street accountable.