The FCIC’s Real Work

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Four top bank CEOs—Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, Morgan Stanley’s John Mack, JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, and Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein—are on Capitol Hill today to face the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is charged with putting together a 9-11 Commission-style report on the causes of the financial crisis. The CEOs are still taking questions, but they haven’t really been telling the commission anything its members didn’t already know.

That’s not really a surprise. The FCIC’s ten members have asked a lot of good questions—and Bill Thomas, the commission’s vice-chairman, demanded the CEOs submit answers to New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin’s hard-hitting queries. But bank CEOs aren’t stupid, and they have great lawyers. They’re very unlikely to say anything that could hurt them or their companies. So it’s important that people recognize that this part of the commission’s work is really just political theater. Unless someone makes a big mistake, we’re not going to learn anything new or surprising just because Lloyd Blankfein made it to Capitol Hill on time.

While ruining Blankfein’s day is the most public part of the FCIC’s job, the most important part of its mission is the grunt work of investigating. The biggest revelations always come when investigators obtain documents that illuminate truths interested parties wouldn’t reveal of their own volition. (Whistleblower testimony is good, too, but it’s not as solid as actual records.) The FCIC has an $8 million budget and a lot of power—it can subpoena witnesses and documents and grant whistleblower protection to encourage people to come forward with information. It’s all well and good to ask these guys questions. But it’s other things—like hunting down key documents (the AIG emails would be a good start) and finding witnesses who aren’t, like the CEOs, paid to protect their institutions—that comprise the commission’s real work. Its success will be determined by how well it’s able to do those things—not by how roughly it can question Jamie Dimon.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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