Matt Taibbi's first new Rolling Stone piece:

[Blue_Tires]

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore.

"It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street," she says. "I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'"

Fleischmann is a tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times. She's had to struggle to find work despite some striking skills and qualifications, a common symptom of a not-so-common condition called being a whistle-blower.

Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.

Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she's kept her mouth shut since then. "My closest family and friends don't know what I've been living with," she says. "Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview."

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it's not exactly news that the country's biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That's why the more important part of Fleischmann's story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.

She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. "Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way," Fleischmann says.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-9-billion-witness-20141106

No wonder Pierre and Glenn didn't want to go anywhere near this story...Now Rolling Stone is getting more mouse clicks in a week than the Intercept gets in a couple of months...

[Hissyspit]

1. Well, great. An excellent Taibbi piece and I can't rec it

Because you just posted it so you could get your little apparently baseless Glenn Greenwald dig in. Do you have any proof at all that he had anything to do with "not going anywhere near this story?"

Post it again with Matt's headline and I'll rec it.

[SidDithers]

2. I'll rec it on your behalf...nt

sid

[Hissyspit]

3. No, thanks.

Speak for yourself and I'll speak for me.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Why does my criticism of Greenwald bother you so much?

Unless you're actually Greenwald, what could it possibly matter to you?

[Hissyspit]

7. Criticism doesn't bother me at all.

Last edited Thu Nov 6, 2014, 04:55 PM - Edit history (1)

False criticism and smear tactics do.

As far as I know Taibbi doesn't have any problem with Greenwald, and it has nothing to do with the content of his article.

[Blue_Tires]

9. Not sure why pointing out

contradictions, half-truths and outright falsehoods in Greenwald's comments is a "smear"...All I've ever done is kept track of what he's said and used his own words against him...

[cui bono]

14. I'm quite sure you are sure.

Anyone who spends any time at all on DU - as your post count clearly shows you have - knows that there is a concerted effort to swiftboat Greenwald because some people just can't stand any criticism of Obama and so they set out to character assassinate those who dare to do so.

Your feigned innocence is not fooling anyone.

[Blue_Tires]

4. I don't need your validation of a single rec

But thanks anyway...The story stands with or without your rec...

My "proof" is that they scratched out a big check to lure Taibbi away from RS, and he ended up leaving without ever producing any proper content for 7-8 months...

My "proof" is Taibbi was *clearly* working on this story while he was still under contract to FLM; this is supposed to be the kind of big-money, halls of power whistleblower expose that Greenwald gets orgasmic over, but for some reason it's running on another site and not the Intercept...

My "proof" is all the tweets and snark that Greenwald and his cronies have been spewing for a year that they were independent with complete autonomy, and Pierre had a complete hands-off approach and it was an investigative reporter's paradise; until they all admitted last week that they'd been lying all this time...And if they lied about that, what else have they been lying about??


So are we actually going to discuss the story, or are you just going to jump on my ass for daring to criticize St. Greenwald and Pope Pierre I?

[Hissyspit]

8. Are we going to discuss the story?

Or are we just going use for a petty baseless jab at the evil Satan Glenn Greenwald?

(Omidiyar is another thing entirely.)

[druidity33]

11. you say:

"until they all admitted last week that they'd been lying all this time"

I'd like a link to this assertion.

Otherwise i call BS.

[cui bono]

13. Seems you are more interested in the gossip rather than the issue content. n/t

[cui bono]

12. +1

[msanthrope]

16. One wonders why Taibbi--hired by Omidayar to write about financial corruption--did not

publish this story, there.

Mr. Taibbi will start his own publication focusing on financial and political corruption, he said in an interview on Wednesday. First Look is financed by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who is worth $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. Mr. Omidyar has pledged $250 million to the project.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/media/start-up-site-hires-critic-of-wall-st.html?_r=1

[KamaAina]

6. Take my advice, Alayne. Don't fly in any small planes.

[Maedhros]

10. Greenwald was not a decision maker in Taibbi's enterprise at First Look.

Don't quite see how he is relevant to this story.

[msanthrope]

15. I'm betting that Mr. Taibbi was prevented from publishing this by Omidayar....

Mr. Taibbi will start his own publication focusing on financial and political corruption, he said in an interview on Wednesday. First Look is financed by the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who is worth $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. Mr. Omidyar has pledged $250 million to the project.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/business/media/start-up-site-hires-critic-of-wall-st.html?_r=1

Imagine that....a magazine, run by a billionaire, not wanting to publish a story on financial corruption?