http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Capitol Hill) en-us Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:42:00 -0800 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/international-complicity-in-cia-rendition-program-exposed?start=0 <p>As US counter-terrorism czar John Brennan appears on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, a new report provides a detailed look at global involvement in the agency's secret program of prisons, rendition and torture in the years after 9/11. In "Globalizing Torture," the Open Society Justice Initiative says 54 countries helped the CIA detain 136 people, the largest tally to date. The report's author, Amrit Singh, joins us to discuss her findings, and Brennan's role in the expansive program she's documented.</p> <p>Image: Mihail Kogalniceanu Airbase east of Bucharest in Romania, indicated by Human Rights Watch as a possible covert CIA prison location.</p> Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:42:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/international-complicity-in-cia-rendition-program-exposed Extraordinary rendition, John Brennan, CIA, Torture, Amrit Singh, Khalid El-Masri, Repatriation of Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery, Maher Arar, War on Terror, Counter-terrorism As counter-terrorism czar John Brennan appears on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearing to head the CIA, a new report provides a detailed look at global involvement in the agency's secret program of prisons, rendition and torture in the years after 9/11. In "Globalizing Torture," the Open Society Justice Initiative says 54 countries helped the CIA detain 136 people, the largest tally to date. The report's author, Amrit Singh, joins us to discuss her findings, and Brennan's role in the expansive program she's documented. ---- President Obama’s nominee to the CIA, John Brennan, is heading to Capitol Hill today for his confirmation hearing. Obama’s counterrorism czar is expected to be grilled on the administration’s secret drone program and the assassination of U.S. citizens overseas. On Wednesday, the Obama administration agreed to show two congressional panels the stated legal rationale for the assassinations after Democratic Senator Ron Wyden suggested he would consider filibustering Brennan’s nomination. Brennan will also likely be asked about his time at the CIA during George W. Bush’s administration. Four years ago, Brennan was a rumored pick for the CIA job when Obama was first elected, but he was forced to withdraw from consideration amid protests over his public support for the CIA’s policies of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and extraordinary rendition program. In 2005, Brennan said on PBS that he was, quote, "intimately familiar" with cases of rendition and that he considered the practice "an absolutely vital tool" in combating terrorism. This is Margaret Warner on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer interviewing John Brennan. So, was Secretary Rice correct today when she called it a vital tool in combating terrorism? JOHN BRENNAN: I think it’s an absolutely vital tool. I have been intimately familiar now over the past decade with the cases of rendition that the U.S. government has been involved in, and I can say without a doubt that it has been very successful as far as producing intelligence that has saved lives. So is it—are you saying, both—in two ways, both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation? JOHN BRENNAN: Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them. And U.S. government will frequently facilitate that movement from a country to another. Why would you not, if this—if you have a suspect who’s a danger to the United States, keep it—keep him in the United States’ custody? Is it because we want another country to do the dirty work? JOHN BRENNAN: No, I don’t think that’s it at all. Also, I think it’s rather arrogant to think that we’re the only country that respects human rights. I think that we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will in fact respect human rights. And there are different ways to gain those assurances. But also, let’s say an individual goes to Egypt, because they’re an Egyptian citizen. And Egyptians then have a longer history in terms of dealing with them, and they have family members and others that they can bring in, in fact, to be part of the whole interrogation process. That was John Brennan speaking to PBS’s Margaret Warner in 2005. Brennan’s confirmation hearing comes as new information is coming to light about the extent of the secret rendition program after the 9/11 attacks. A new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative names at least 136 individuals who were allegedly subjected to secret detention and rendition. The report is called "Globalizing Torture." It also identifies 54 foreign governments that aided the United States in these operations. The countries include Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Yemen and Zimbabwe. One country that’s not listed is India, but the report is making headlines there, too, because, for more, we’re joined now by the report’s author, Amrit Singh. She’s senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative. The full name of her new report is "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition." She’s co-author with Jameel Jaffer of the book Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond_. And interestingly, the new torture report has become news in India. The human-rights-secret-detention-amrit-singh">headline in The Times of India reads, quote: "Prime Minister’s Daughter Blows Whistle on 54 Nations that Helped U.S. Detention Programme." Another website headline, their story: "PM’s Daughter Takes on CIA over Torture." That’s right, our guest, Amrit Singh, is the daughter of India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Amrit Singh, welcome to Democracy Now! Thank you. Let’s talk about John Brennan first. He goes to Capitol Hill today for his confirmation hearing. You wrote a piece in the Los Angeles Times. What do you think he should be asked? What do you think of the nomination of John Brennan to be head of the CIA? Well, I think John Brennan should be asked what he meant when he said that he was intimately familiar with cases of rendition and that rendition is an absolutely vital tool in combating terrorism, because by the time Brennan made that statement in December of 2005, a number of people had been rendered to foreign governments where they were tortured. By December of 2005, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery had been rendered to Egypt and subjected to electric shock. By December of 2005, Maher Arar, a Canadian national, had been rendered to Syria and subjected to being locked up in a tiny grave-like cell and beaten with cables. By December 2005, a number of other individuals, including Khalid El-Masri, had been rendered. Khalid El-Masri was captured and kidnapped in Macedonia and transferred to Afghanistan and abused. A recent court decision by the European Court of Human Rights found that Khalid El-Masri’s treatment by the CIA amounted to torture. So I think that John Brennan has a lot of explaining to do as to what exactly he meant. Well, Brennan also said in that clip that the government sought assurances from the other countries to which these individuals were rendered that human rights would be respected. But you, in your report, clearly indicate that mere blanket assurances are insufficient to be able to deal with the—obviously, with the kind of abuse that occurred here. That’s correct. Maher Arar was transferred to Syria after assurances were obtained from Syria not to torture him, but he was tortured nonetheless. Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad al-Zery were transferred from Sweden to Egypt with assurances from Egypt not to torture him, but they were tortured. They were subjected to electric shocks. So, I think that the—there’s a wealth of information in the public domain that shows that these diplomatic assurances in fact don’t work. High-level Bush administration officials themselves acknowledged that there’s only so much you can do once a prisoner is out of your custody. So, the onus really is on the Obama administration to explain what is its policy and how is it going to work. What do you think of John Brennan as the—as President Obama’s nominee? Well, I think he has many questions to answer. I think that rendition is obviously, as documented in this report, the source of grave human rights violations. It damaged the United States’s reputation around the world. It coopted as many as 54 governments into a torture program. It was flagrantly illegal. And I think it really requires a serious examination by the Senate Intelligence Committee. I want to go to another clip of John Brennan in 2006 when he appeared on PBS’s Frontline and was questioned about the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies. JOHN BRENNAN: The war, or the campaign against terrorism, is going to be a long one, and that the opposition, whether it be al-Qaeda or whether it be Iraq, doesn’t play by the Marquess of Queensbury rules, and therefore, you know, the U.S., in some areas, has to take off the gloves. And I think that’s entirely appropriate. I think we do have to take off the gloves in some areas, but within bounds, and at the right time, in the right way, and for the right reason, and with full understanding of what the consequences of that might be. This issue of John Brennan saying the U.S. has to take off the gloves, given the necessity of the fight against the war on terrorism, your response? Well, I think that that was a sentiment that was echoed across the Bush administration. The report opens with a quote from Vice President Dick Cheney saying that we have to go to the dark side, and was repeated by a number of counterterrorism officials in the Bush administration. Well, I think that that is—the fact that this report documents as many as 136 cases of human rights violations, including torture, demonstrates what that paradigm led to. It was a paradigm that essentially ignored longstanding prohibitions against torture, that violated not only international but also domestic law. I’m interested—your report, in the 54 countries that you mention, mentions some countries that most Americans are not aware are cooperating in the—Zimbabwe and Iran. The particular case of Iran’s involvement in some of these renditions, could you talk about that? Yes, it’s interesting. There are a number of individuals who were captured in Iran who were then handed over to Afghan authorities as part of a prisoner exchange, that then—but the Iranians must have known at the time that the—that the Afghans would hand them over to the U.S. because of the ongoing hostilities in Afghanistan. So, summarize the findings in your report. It’s extremely extensive. And what surprised you most as you did this research, Amrit? Well, I think, at a very basic level, just the—the horrific kinds of abuse that was meted out by the United States and its partners to the human beings who were subjected to these operations, that of course stands out, but also just the scale and sweep of these operations, the number of people who were put through this and the number of governments that were coopted. And I think that, of course, the U.S. was a ringleader. This was—this was the CIA’s invention. But moral responsibility does not rest with the United States alone; it rests also with those 54 governments that were complicit in various ways. But I should also add that the—you know, the U.S.—leaving aside the damage to its moral reputation, the U.S. also exposed itself to liability and censure worldwide, because we’re now increasingly seeing foreign courts pass judgment against the United States, as in the case of Khalid El-Masri. The European Court of Human Rights essentially found that the CIA’s treatment of him amounted to torture. And just very quickly, explain his story, for people who don’t know. This was an innocent guy on a bus, a case of mistaken identity? That’s correct. So Khalid El-Masri was essentially traveling on vacation in Macedonia in December of 2003, and he was abducted by Macedonian officials acting at the direction of the CIA in Macedonia, locked up, secretly detained for 23 days in Macedonian custody, and then transferred to the CIA at Skopje Airport in Macedonia. And then the CIA flew him to Afghanistan and held him for four months in further secret detention, did not permit him access to counsel or his family or a German counselor. He says he was injected. He— Right. He was sodomized at the airport. He was beaten. He was stripped naked, and he was subjected to a range of sexual humiliation and abuse, and ultimately, after four months, was released, without explanation, without apology, in a roadside in Albania and was sort of left to make his way home back to Germany. Khalid El-Masri has not received any kind of acknowledgment from the United States government, no apology and no compensation. Very early on, Condoleezza Rice understood this was a case of mistaken identity, but they continued to hold him because what would they do with him when he got out and told what happened to him? Exactly. And in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times, you raise the point that many of the—or, all of these people who were subjected to this kind of treatment, none of them has gotten any kind of compensation, acknowledgment from the U.S. government, nor has the government sought to prosecute any of the officials that were involved or knowledgeable about the crimes that were committed here in terms of the attacks or the abuse of these folks. That’s correct. There has been virtually no accountability in the United States for these abuses. A Justice Department investigation into abuses only looked at abuses that exceeded the abuse that its own Office of Legal Counsel had authorized. And we know from the Office of Legal Counsel memos released in August of 2009 by President Obama’s administration that there was a range of horrific abuse that was specifically authorized by the Bush administration. But none of those officials have been held accountable to date. We want to thank you very much, Amrit, for joining us. And I wanted to ask, finally, on that list, very extensive list of 54 countries, India was not on the list. Right. Were you surprised by this? Well, I mean, I—I’m a researcher, I’m a lawyer. I tell the truth. And I documented what I found. So, I represented what the facts were. It’s not my—I didn’t—you know, I did the best I could. Of course, there were—what’s amazing is we’re talking about almost a third of the countries in the world that were involved. That’s right, a quarter of the countries in the world. The State Department recognizes 195. Fifty-four is more than a quarter of that, yes. And in terms of that, these countries that have been involved, that you talk about being coopted, what were the deals that were made? And have countries come forth to say what they did? Well, I think that we don’t know all of the facts with respect to each government, but we do know that there were a number of bilateral agreements that were signed, and there was also a NATO framework within many of—within which many of these agreements were executed. We know, for example, in Poland there have been reports of an agreement that was arrived at between the Polish authorities and the United States. Now, the—apparently, there was actually a document in Poland that bore the signature of the Polish official but not the American official. The Americans might have been more careful in not committing their signatures to writing. But nonetheless, these were very secret operations that could not have been implemented without very high-level authorizations from top officials in all of these governments. And have any of the governments sought to come clean and to hold their officials responsible for what maybe a prior administration in that country did? Well, it’s interesting that Canada has apologized to Maher Arar for its involvement in his extraordinary rendition to Syria. Canada supplied faulty intelligence to the United States that led to the rendition of Arar to Syria. But there—by and large, most governments have not owned up to the truth. And there is evidence in the public domain to suggest that the United States has exerted diplomatic pressure on a lot of governments not to disclose information about this highly classified operation. Do you think there should be war crimes trials in this country? Well, I think that there needs to be some measure of accountability. I mean, there has been virtually none. And that’s something that cannot stand. Not only must officials be held accountable, but there needs to be further disclosure about the extent of these operations, the victims. There needs to be acknowledgement by the United States. And it’s—if Canada can apologize and compensate Maher Arar, why is it that the United States, which was the principal ringleader in all of these operations, cannot issue a similar apology, not only to Maher Arar, but a number of other victims like Khalid El-Masri who were wrongfully abducted and tortured? I want to thank you for being with us, Amrit Singh, senior legal officer at the National Security and Counterterrorism program at the Open Society Justice Initiative. The new report is called "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition." And we’ll link to it at democracynow.org. This Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We’ll be back in a minute. http://news.linktv.org/videos/hillary-clinton-will-testify-on-benghazi-tragedy?start=0 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be called on the carpet Wednesday to testify about the deadly terrorist attack on the US embassy in Benghazi that claimed the lives of four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens. She's expected to face harsh questioning at the Capitol Hill hearing about what US officials knew about a threat to the embassy, when they knew it, and why they didn't take action sooner to protect American lives. Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:40:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/hillary-clinton-will-testify-on-benghazi-tragedy Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, 2012 US diplomatic missions attacks, Politics of the United States, United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Christopher Stevens, Capitol Hill, Hearing (law), Libya, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be called on the carpet Wednesday to testify about the deadly terrorist attack on the US embassy in Benghazi that claimed the lives of four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens. She's expected to face harsh questioning at a Capitol Hill hearing about what US officials knew about a threat to the embassy, when they knew it, and why they didn't take action sooner to protect American lives. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012?start=0 Protesters confront JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as he testifies on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets, but US senators give him an easy ride. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012 JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, United States Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs , Barack Obama, United States, Syria, Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, National security, Syrian Civil War, Crimes Against Humanity Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets; lawmakers, however, gave him a warmer reception. A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise. And a bipartisan dispute has emerged on Capitol Hill over how to investigate a series of national security leaks, including disclosures about President Obama's secret "kill list." Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012?start=843 Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets. Lawmakers, however, gave a warmer greeting to "Washington's favorite banker." Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:02:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-14-2012 JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, United States Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs , Barack Obama, United States, Syria, Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, National security, Syrian Civil War, Crimes Against Humanity Protesters confronted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday as he testified on Capitol Hill about how his bank lost up to $3 billion in risky bets. Lawmakers, however, gave a warmer greeting to the man described as Washington's favorite banker. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year, and Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. We speak to former investment banker Nomi Prins, author of "Black Tuesday." Prins calls Dimon's appearance "the tamest — and there have been very tame ones — hearing for any of the bank leaders since the [financial] crisis began in 2008." She adds that "what we saw yesterday was a glimpse of how lobbying money, as well as additional campaign money ... have a tremendous impact on regulations and ... the power that [the financial industry has] within the Senate and, therefore, with respect to regulation of their own industry. ... This is why there's no line between legislators and bankers." JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday for the first time since his bank lost up to $3 billion in a risky speculative bet. Dimon apologized for the loss but failed to explain how the money was actually lost. He also continued his voice his opposition to new banking regulations. During the hearing, Dimon was repeatedly confronted by protesters. PROTESTER: This man is a criminal, and people need to shout out about this man and 18 other cronies that have been stealing near-zero-interest loans from the people, when the small businesses can't get the same loans, when the people are deprived loans to get into their—to keep their houses, when people are being thrown out on the streets. While protesters attempted to confront Dimon, many lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee warmly welcomed him and repeatedly praised the bank. This is Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. SEN. JIM DEMINT: Thank you, Mr. Dimon. I really appreciate you voluntarily coming in to talk with us. It is important that we talk about things happening in the industry. It will, I think, advise us, help us and—as we look forward, and hopefully it will contribute to best practice scenario in the industry, and I appreciate your emphasis on a continuous quality improvement. We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day. And it's comforting to know that even with the $2 million—$2 billion loss in a trade last year, your company still, I think, had a $19 billion profit. During that same period, we lost over a trillion dollars. So if we had a clawback provision, none of us would be getting paid here. So the intent today is really not to sit in judgment, but to maybe understand better what happened. Jamie Dimon's warm welcome did not come as a surprise to many on Capitol Hill. JPMorgan spent $7.6 million on lobbying last year. According to the watchdog group Open Secrets, Dimon has a long record of contributing campaign donations to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee. Recipients have included committee chair Tim Johnson; Democrat Mark Warner; the top Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby; and Bob Corker. Meanwhile, at least one current staffer on the Senate Banking Committee is a former lobbyist for JPMorgan Chase, and at least five former committee staffers now work at JPMorgan. While JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon apologized for the bank's recent $3 billion loss, he failed to say how the money was lost. I think that, no matter how good you are, how competent people are, never, ever get complacent in risk. Challenge everything. Make sure people on risk committees are always asking questions, that's sharing information, and that you have very, very granular limits when you're taking risk. A granular limit says you could take no more than x risk in y, no more this risk in a name nor this risk in a market, including things like liquidity risks, so that you're controlled. In the rest of the company, we have those disciplines in place. We didn't have it here, and that's what caused the problem. To talk more about JPMorgan, we're joined by financial journalist Nomi Prins. She formerly worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and ran the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London. Her latest book is called Black Tuesday, which is a novel about corruption and romance surrounding the 1929 stock market crash. She's also the author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street as well as Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America. Nomi Prins, you tweeted all through yesterday's hearing. Why was Jamie Dimon called to speak before, testify before the Senate Banking Committee? Well, as we just heard, apparently, from one senator, he wasn't called to sit there and be judged for the loss, how it was created, how he felt sorry but unaccountable for its creation. So that didn't seem to be the purpose for a lot of the senators there. What did seem to be an overriding purpose for this hearing was a judgment on regulation of the industry, where Jamie Dimon was sort of used as the pin for the senators that were talking about the need to not further regulate or more harshly regulate the banking industry, to which he of course falls very neatly in line, and the ones that sort of were talking about regulating it, but not so much. You know, as you mentioned in the read-up, there really wasn't a lot of grilling in this particular hearing. I thought it was the tamest—and there have been very tame ones—hearing for any of the bank leaders since the crisis began in 2008. Well, I'd like to play a clip of Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, asking Dimon how much regulators at the OCC, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, knew about the risky investments that led to JPMorgan Chase's loss. SEN. SHERROD BROWN: Was the OCC told about the trades taking place in your CIO office prior to the April 6 media reports? We are—we try to be very open kimono with regulators. We give them reports. They did—they do get some reports. We give them what they want. We give them the information they want. In this particular case, I think that we—since we were a little misinformed, we probably had them misinformed. The mistake we made, we passed on to them, and we—but the second we found out, the first people we got on the phone with was our regulators to explain: "We have a problem. We want to describe it to you." And, of course, they've been deeply been engaged since then. Nomi Prins, your reaction to this relationship's explanation of how they were dealing with the regulators? Yeah, well, when I was tweeting about it, I think my reaction was to laugh. But I know it's not really funny. It's really quite sad. What he—to interpret what he just said there, it's something like: "We didn't really tell the regulators what was going on, because they didn't ask. And when we knew what was going on, which we weren't really watching, we told them, and then they sort of looked into it, and then all this happened." It's this chicken-and-egg thing with regulators. And actually, throughout his testimony, he was very admissive of regulators doing anything. But he basically said, "Look, we misinformed them because we were misinformed." And the use of the word "we" kind of indicates a general "we." You know, on the one hand, he's sorry. You know, "I am sorry." Jamie Dimon is sorry. On the other hand, "we sort of collectively didn't really know, and then we did know, and when we did know, we told the regulators," and so forth. First of all, it's the regulators' job. This was 20 percent of the firm's assets. Twenty percent of the largest bank in the world's assets were tied up in these trades. You're not allowed to, as a regulator, not know, not ask every single day, hour, whatever, what is going on in that trade. So that was definitely a fault of the regulators. But on the side of Chase, yes, we don't know—and that's sort of what he admitted, without wanting to admit it—what was really going on as that trade was going wrong. And again, the trade was a substantial portion of the assets of the firm. It was not a little trade that blew up. It was not something that, you know, he calls a mistake. It was a dedicated transaction, which he did not explain yesterday, for which, in a derivative's way, in something called a synthetic derivative's way, which is the most risky way of putting on the trade they were putting on, the position that they were taking, as we are seeing, they basically lost money by betting that North American corporate credits were going to improve over that period of time, and they did not. And the way that they bet that was a very expensive and risky way to do it. So, for Jamie Dimon to indicate that he kind of didn't know until he did know is not—it cannot be true. I want to play, Nomi Prins, one of the few tense exchanges from yesterday's hearing, and it's quite something that there were only a few. This is Oregon Democrat, Senator Jeff Merkley, questioning JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon. In 2008, 2009, your company benefited from half-a-trillion dollars in low-cost federal loans, $25 billion in TARP loans, of TARP funds, untold billions indirectly through the bailout of AIG that helped address your massive exposure in repurchase agreements and derivatives. With all of that in mind, wouldn't JPMorgan have gone down without the massive federal intervention, both directly and indirectly, in 2008 or 2009? I think you were misinformed. And I think that misinformation is leading to a lot of the problems we're having today. JPMorgan took TARP because we were asked to by the Secretary of Treasury of the United States of America, with the FDIC in the room, head of the New York Fed, Tim Geithner, chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. We did not, at that point, need TARP. We were asked to, because we were told—I think correctly so—that if the nine banks there—and some may have needed it—take this TARP, we can get it to the—all these other banks and stop the system from going down. We did not— I'm going to cut you— We did not borrow from the Federal Reserve, except when they asked us to. They said, "Please use these facilities, because it makes it easier for other" — We would all like to be asking— And we were not bailed out by AIG, OK? If AIG itself would have—we would have had a direct loss of maybe a billion or $2 billion if AIG went down, and we would have been OK. Then you have a difference of opinion with many analysts of the situation who felt the AIG bailout did benefit you enormously. And I'm not going to carry that argument with you now. Well, but they're factually— Sir— They're factually wrong. Sir, this is not your hearing. I'm asking you to respond to questions. And I also only have five minutes. Oregon Democrat, Senator Jeff Merkley, questioning JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon before the Senate Banking Committee, testifying yesterday. Your response, Nomi Prins? Well, first of all, it should be noted that Senator Merkley is not one of the recipients of JPMorgan Chase's campaign contributions, so that gave him, I think, the latitude, which we need from our senators, in asking these kind of questions, number one. Number two, this has been the myth that Jamie Dimon has perpetuated from the get-go, that JPMorgan Chase was the only bank that was somehow isolated from the interrelationship of all of the subprime assets that were basically toxically created and fraudulently distributed through the global investor community on the backs of subprime loans that were basically extracted from individuals throughout the country and that somehow they were the only bank that was clean on this. In other words, it would not have suffered any losses, any negativity, had there not been any form of bailout or guarantees from the United States government. The—two points on that. First of all, he wasn't separate from the New York Fed. You know, Tim Geithner was not someone kind of separate from him. Jamie Dimon, then and now, was and is a Class A director of the New York Fed, so he is the New York Fed in a lot of instances. But on a wider point, JPMorgan Chase benefited from two very big things that Senator Merkley didn't even mention, which was that they achieved an acquisition of Bear Stearns, for which the government is still backing to the tune of $29 billion of guarantees for the assets in that acquisition, and it received some very favorable terms, and in negotiations, to acquire Washington Mutual. So, the result of that entire period was for JPMorgan to have emerged, by the help of so many things that Merkley mentioned as well as the two things I have just mentioned, to become the largest bank in the United States. So for him to sit there and say, "You know what? No, this was all just because I was really good, and it was—I was taking one for the team on Wall Street; otherwise—you know, they arm-twisted me. You know, they had a gun to my head. I couldn't help it; I had to take the money," is absolutely ridiculous. Nomi Prins, I'd like to ask you about this whole issue of this incestuous relationship between people connected to JPMorgan Chase and these Senate and House committees. For instance, Kate Childress, a JPMorgan lobbyist since 2008, was also a former aide to Chuck Schumer, who sits on the Banking Committee. You've got Mel Martinez, who was a senator in the United States, is now the JPMorgan Chase executive in charge of Florida, Central America and the Caribbean. You've got P. Michael Nielsen, a lobbyist with a firm run by former Senator Bob Bennett, who was also on the Banking Committee. He's been retained by JPMorgan for help with federal probes. And it goes on and on. Yeah. What we saw yesterday was a glimpse of how that lobbying money, as well as additional campaign money, and in many meetings and phone calls throughout the entire process, which we don't even really quantify in those terms but have a tremendous impact on regulations and on how the industry is viewed and how particular members of it, certainly the larger ones like JPMorgan Chase, are viewed and the power that they have within the Senate and, therefore, with respect to regulation of their own industry. And the fact that there is a revolving door is very much intrinsic to the problem there. You've got an industry where—before, JPMorgan was talking about effectively policing himself, you know, regulators not knowing until we told them, and when we did, you know, and all of that. You know, we have a Senate Banking Committee that's comprised, except for six members, actually, of people who have gotten contributions in some manner from JPMorgan Chase. You know, we have lobbyists who are going back and forth. Chuck Schumer is an example of someone who asked incredibly tepid questions yesterday. One of the things he said, I think, was, "Well, you know, shareholders lost some money, but taxpayers didn't." And then he kind of proceeded to tag a question onto that, which was very, very light-handed. And so, these people really protect, on the side of Washington, the relationships with JPMorgan Chase. They go and work there, or they come from there— Nomi Prins, so, let— —and work within the Senate Banking Committee. Let's talk more— And they write their own rules. And that's partly why we have— Let's talk more about the amounts of money. —no real structural regulation of the industry. We have detailed regulation. We have reports that have to be filled out by the bank, when they want to fill out and with the information they choose to provide. You have regulators running around the offices of these banks. But in terms of real structural change and regulation to make these banks smaller, to make them more accountable, to separate, you know, the deposits and loans of individuals from these types of trades that can go on in a chief investment office and lose billions of dollars, or even make billions of dollars, but have that kind of risk swing, is all because of the relationships, the monetary relationships and revolving door between the banking industry and the banking regulations. Nomi Prins, I want to go to that issue of the money the Senate Banking Committee members have received—in fact, millions of dollars from the financial industry. This is some of the figures: Michael Bennet, the Democrat from Colorado, received $2.5 million; Robert Menendez, Democrat from New Jersey, $2.3 million; Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, who you were just talking about, $5.6 million; Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, $2.5 million; Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, $3.4 million; Roger Wicker, Republican in Mississippi, $1.5 million. And we could go on. Yeah, I mean, this is—this is why there's no line between legislators and bankers. And beyond the millions of dollars that they are getting to run their campaigns and to stay in office or to get elected into office and so forth, there's also all the sort of additional value that is received by the fact that JPMorgan Chase actually is giving them money, because if one bank is giving them money, it's not the only bank giving them money, it's the entire industry. And we're looking at a piece of it through, you know, the largest and most powerful commercial bank in the United States, but this is the way it works. And these people know that partially why they are sitting there in those seats is, unfortunately, not because they were simply voted in, but because they had the money to basically market themselves and stay in and connect to their real friends, which are the banking community they're supposed to be legislating against. Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Nomi Prins. Nomi Prins is author of a number of books, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, formerly walked on—worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs and was with Bear Stearns in London. And her latest book is a novel called Black Tuesday, a novel about corruption and romance surrounding the 1929 stock market crash.