Ron Paul .com

Show: Freedom Watch
Channel: FoxNews.com
Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 1/13/2010

Transcript

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Hello and welcome to Freedom Watch, your daily dose of raw liberty streaming online at www.FoxNews.com. I’m your host Judge Andrew Napolitano, here defending freedom, defending your natural rights and defending your right to have a government that stays within the confines of the Constitution.

The recently released New York Fed / AIG emails reveal a conspiracy among the lawyers for AIG and the New York Federal Reserve, to conceal from the Securities and Exchange Commission the true nature and extent of AIG’s indebtedness and its intention to pay certain vendors, among them Goldman Sachs, 100 cents on the dollar.

It is a federal crime to leave out material information involved in a loan from a federally insured bank. And this wasn’t your ordinary loan, this was a case involving the movement of nearly 185 billion dollars among the treasury, the New York Fed, J.P. Morgan Chase and AIG. Leaving out the name, the amount, and the intended payment to a creditor of 13 billion dollars, would surely satisfy the material misrepresentation requirement of the statue that criminalizes such omissions.

The fact that “The government told me to do it” is not only not a defense at law, but may and should implicate whoever in the government counseled in favor of such omissions.

Though we do not know, and I have not seen any evidence of, any personal knowledge of any of this by the then senior official at the New York Fed, current treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, it is difficult to believe that he would not have known of any of this.

The following is clear: it’s clear that senior personnel in the legal department of the New York Fed did know of it. Now the lawyers would no doubt say in their own defense – they were the bank’s lawyers. They and the bank knew of AIG’s intentions with respect to Goldman Sachs. And thus that fact did not have to be reduced to writing since the Fed knew well where its money was going, there was no harm and, thus, no foul.

Unfortunately for the Fed’s lawyers and AIG’s lawyers and executives, the sneaky revelation through word of mouth of that which the law requires to be stated in writing, does not fulfill the requirements of the law.

Could it be that the single largest federal bailout in history was procured by fraud? Fraud in which the feds themselves participated, and the government actually counseled in favor of criminal behavior? Only in America.

It is now my pleasure to introduce one of America’s great defenders of freedom today. Congressman Ron Paul joins us from our national’s capital. Congressman, a belated Happy New Year and welcome back to Freedom Watch.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Should Tim Geithner be fired whether he knew or even if he didn’t know what lawyers in his name were telling lawyers at AIG to do in a 185 billion dollar deal?

Ron Paul: Yeah, I think he’s earned that. I think anybody who’s trying to act responsibly and have a clean slate, he would have to go. You imply that probably fraud was involved in this operation. But I think that’s a narrow definition of fraud, and the broad definition of fraud is the whole process; the whole system of money is fraud. You know, it’s a cartel with fiat money and they’re always taking care of their friends.

But you know, I put out a little release after this happened. I didn’t concentrate on Geithner, and I think he is important and even if he didn’t know anything about it, to me it seems like he’s irresponsible. He should have known something about it. But my point that I made was, this makes the issue of transparency of the Fed very, very important. And then they yell and scream that we’re not supposed to know. So as bad as the Fed is and what they’ve done, you know, I blame the Congress still the most because it’s we here in the Congress that have the responsibility. The Congress in the past has created this system, and now even this generalized concept of fraud turns into a narrow system of fraud. And the Congress, you know, they’re going to tinker and yell and scream and all. But Congress has a lot responsibility for the mess that we’re in today.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You know, I thought of you yesterday, Congressman Paul, when we first learnt of this story. And I thought to myself: “My goodness, here is another argument in favor of auditing the Fed. Think of the attitude on the part of these Fed lawyers. Let’s see, we’re talking about September 2008. The present secretary of the treasury is the former chair of Goldman Sachs. You guys are going to take the money we’re giving to you and you’re going to pay Goldman Sachs 100 cents on the dollar, and you’re not going to pay anybody else 100 cents on the dollar. Maybe we shouldn’t put that in writing. Think of the problems that come about when the government breaks its own laws.”

Ron Paul: Judge, you think this could qualify as the big lie? It’s so preposterous, nobody would believe this is conceivable, but they would allow this to happen. But this is a big lie, you know, when you think of what we do and reward Goldman Sachs and all the banks, and they’re still back in business. They’re making a lot of money and we’re still guaranteeing this money to them through the FDIC and other assurance programs that are available. So we haven’t really done anything yet.

And this commission that’s in operation down here right now to investigate is another commission that won’t accomplish anything. They do not have one free market economist that is on the commission. They probably won’t have anybody testify from an Austrian free market viewpoint, and they’re going to find the answer to this? The very economists who predicted this mess and know what was going on, you know, they understand it, but they’re not going to touch this. They’re going to talk about tinkering around with regulations. If we have a few more regulations, like Sarbanes-Oxley, and chase good companies overseas, that’s the only thing that’s likely to happen because they’re not even talking about the real problem; the fraud in the monetary system. Continue reading “Ron Paul on Freedom Watch”