Wells Fargo & Co (WFC): The Obama Administration Overreach No One Is Talking About

Overreach, pure and simple
This administration has had almost five years to deal with the crimes committed in the run-up to the financial crisis. In that time, Iceland convicted its ex-prime minister on a crisis-relate charge. The scrappy little North Atlantic island also indicted two CEOs whose banks collapsed during the crash. If the DOJ wanted to go after the banks — or even government officials — for anything related to the financial crisis, it’s had ample time and opportunity to do so.

Certainly, there was no shortage of wrongdoing by American banks in the run-up to the crash. But five years out, the lingering threat of federal regulatory action is an unnecessary sword hanging over the head of U.S. banking. A free-market economy needs smoothly circulating money in order to flourish, with banks that feel safe lending — without the fear of potentially game-changing or crippling regulatory actions, and the fines that come along with them.

This attempt by the Obama Justice Department to use wartime powers to go after banks and other financial institutions for alleged financial crimes — after traditional statutes of limitation have expired — is overreach, pure and simple. Along with the other abuses of executive authority we’ve witnessed of late, it doesn’t bode well for our democracy, let alone for the publicly traded banks that keep the economy moving and the shareholders who invest their hard-earned dollars in them.

The article The Obama Administration Overreach No One Is Talking About originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by John Grgurich.

John Grgurich has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Wells Fargo.

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