Man. That venture capital bank bailout mess is really something, isn’t it? To quote the great George Costanza, “This thing is like an onion. The more layers you peel, the more it stinks.”
And in case you missed it, there’s quite an interesting and stinky layer to the bailouts, and its name is Barney Frank. As in Barney Frank, the former Democratic congressman whose name is on a major piece of Wall Street reform legislation and who just so happened to be a member of the board of New-York-based Signature Bank, which went down in the same batch as Silicon Valley Bank.
National Review senior political correspondent Jim Geraghty has got a fascinating new thread today to accompany a fascinating new Morning Jolt all about how Barney Frank fits into the bank bailout puzzle — and about how, if Frank had an (R) after his name, he’d be the subject of an endless media outrage cycle:
Gonna have to go Rod Serling for this one…https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/RrVSFWhbe2
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
It’s time to go on a journey.
Picture, if you will, a 16-term congressman who plays a major role in overhauling the nation’s regulation of banks. He then retires & joins the board of directors of a New York-based national bank traded on NASDAQ, a bank with assets of about $50 billion.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/n3PCsEfghH
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Imagine that while this congressman was still serving in the legislature, he denounced two of his former staffers who had gone to work as lobbyists for banks… before he retired to serve on the board of directors of a bank.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/s9egOSGp0J
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Imagine that two years after the congressman joined the bank’s board, the New York state attorney general put the congressman’s bank atop her list of banks that loaned the most money to the landlords on the state’s Worst Landlords Watchlist.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/88SaRO4Xgj
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Imagine that the congressman’s bank came under the scrutiny of the DOJ and SEC over fears that the bank didn’t take sufficient steps to detect potential money laundering by clients, such as scrutinizing people opening accounts and monitoring transactions for signs of criminality. pic.twitter.com/f0uQfKWNOK
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Imagine that a former executive claimed that employees at the congressman’s bank kept their jobs despite being accused of a $1 million wire-fraud scheme.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/d6zircNMHl
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Now imagine that the New York State Department of Financial Services suddenly took possession of the congressman’s bank, making it the third-largest bank to fall into financial failure in U.S. history.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/vMMmM8uXJH
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Then, imagine that in an interview with the Financial Times, the congressman explained he joined the bank’s board because “I need to make some money.” He received nearly $2 million in cash for serving on the bank’s board over 8 years for a part-time gig.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/EHgg2GGkfA
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Right now, some of you are exclaiming…https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/8IrDSWMkl4
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Dun-dun-duuuunnnnnn:
You see, my friends, you don't have to imagine any of this, because it all actually happened, in the form of former Democratic congressman Barney Frank and his role on the board of the now-shuttered Signature Bank. https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/MNoB234qsB
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
It's not that the media has ignored Frank this past week; he's a bunch of interviews right now in a hasty effort at reputation management.https://t.co/gQCC1ZNHIL
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
But you and I know that if Barney Frank were a Republican, he would be the face of the current banking crisis. He would already be on the covers of magazines and major newspapers, on television all the time, and the subject of condemning profile pieces.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
Without any doubt whatsoever.
Frank asked NPR to not ask any questions that would require complicated or lengthy answers: “I asked you not to do this. I don’t know how much time is time left, but I don’t like to be asked complicated questions.”https://t.co/L2RdlXXquy
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
We’ll bet he doesn’t. And, infuriatingly, our incurious Guardians of Truth are just fine with that.
Frank’s contention is that New York state regulators shut down Signature Bank for no good reason other than to send a warning to the rest of the financial community to get as far away from cryptocurrency as possible.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o pic.twitter.com/Q0sGUYxaKq
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
The New York State Department of Financial Services essentially calls Frank’s explanation horsepuckey. It had “nothing to do with crypto,” but instead was a response to “a significant crisis of confidence in the bank’s leadership.”https://t.co/dESoRYk85o
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
No doubt the cryptocurrency enthusiasts believe they’re unfairly demonized, but it’s a little tough to believe that the NY state government would shut down the 36th largest bank in the country just to send a signal to other banks to get out of crypto.https://t.co/dESoRYk85o
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) March 17, 2023
And it’s extremely tough to believe anything that comes out of Barney Frank’s mouth. The media know it, too. They just don’t care.
Nailed it. If only we had investigative journalists.
— TLNP (@kyvault) March 17, 2023
If only.
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