Eric Holder, the attorney general at the time, did not prosecute bankers for the 2008 recession. The attorney general did prosecute people responsible for the issues in the dot com crash.
How is that comparable? Holder even stated, "I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult to prosecute them" because it might damage the economy. That is not an aspect the AG should be considering. They should be upholding the rule of law which did not occur after the 2008 crisis
> Grassley: Do you believe that the investment bankers that were repackaging bad mortgages that were AAA-rated are guilty of fraud or is it a case of just not being aggressive or effective enough to prove that they did something fraudulent and criminal?
> Holder: We looked at those kinds of cases. I think we have been appropriately aggressive, these are not always easy cases to make. When you look at these cases, you see that things were done ‘wrong’ then the question is whether or not they were illegal. And I think the people in our criminal division… I think have been as aggressive as they could be, brought cases where we think we could have brought them. I know that in some instances that has not been a satisfying answer to people, but we have been as aggressive as we could have been.
He also says:
> Holder: You are right, senator. The greatest deterrent effect is not to prosecute a corporation — although that’s important — the greatest deterrent effect is to prosecute the individuals in the corporations that are responsible for those decisions.
He's saying the opposite of what you're claiming he said: that he tried to prosecute the "bankers" as aggressively as he could, but the cases were "not easy to make."
More granularly than decisions made by Holder, one could also look at the number of prosecutions (vs lack of prosecutions) from the US Southern District of New York which has jurisdiction in the area.
