The Dept. of Justice must investigate and prosecute senior Wells Fargo executives

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Petition: Investigate and prosecute Wells Fargo executives

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    Petition to Attorney General Loretta Lynch:
    The Wells Fargo fraudulent accounts scandal is a crucial test for the Justice Department’s newly stated focus on holding senior executives individually accountable for wrongdoing. Please lead the Department of Justice in a thorough investigation of senior executives at Wells Fargo, and prosecute all illegal behavior you uncover.

    Wells Fargo just launched an expensive nationwide TV ad campaign this week and replaced their CEO.

    But Elizabeth Warren is already ringing the alarm bell about the new CEO Tim Sloan – an executive who’s been at Wells Fargo for 29 years and who defended Wells Fargo pressure-cooker sales culture just 4 months ago!

    And the senior executives who ran this scam still haven’t seen serious consequences.

    We need to show Wells Fargo we won’t be distracted by their PR campaign –and demand real accountability for the illegal behavior at the root of the Wells Fargo scandal.

    Sign the petition to the Justice Department: Criminally investigate the senior executives responsible for the Wells Fargo fraudulent accounts scandal. Aggressively prosecute all illegal behavior you uncover.

    The consequences Wells Fargo has faced so far are quite frankly a drop in the bucket for executives at the top.

    The bank settled with watchdog agencies in Washington for $190 million, but that fine is less than 1% of their annual revenue.

    And after their CEO John Stump and retail banking head Carrie Tolstedt “retired,” they walked off with tens of millions of dollars – and not a day of jail time for this massive fraud.

    That’s why Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and 12 other senators asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch to lead the Justice Department to criminally investigate senior executives at Wells Fargo.

    Their letter has it right: “Every time the Department of Justice settles a case of corporate fraud without holding individuals accountable, it reinforces the notion that the wealthy and powerful have purchased a higher class of justice for themselves.”

    Sign if you agree with Elizabeth Warren: The Justice Department should hold senior executives at Wells Fargo personally accountable for the massive fraud they oversaw.

    Wells Fargo is a textbook case of fraud. The New Republic says, “If the SEC and the Justice Department don’t get involved here, they might as well not even exist.”

    • First, securities fraud: Elizabeth Warren laid out 12 times that Wells Fargo’s CEO praised his company’s aggressive (and fraudulent) cross-selling – never revealing that Wells Fargo was under federal scrutiny. That’s a straightforward case of securities fraud.
    • Second, there’s the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a post-Enron reform: Under that law, Wells Fargo’s CEO had to personally certify he had adequate “internal control” at the company. Either he lied on that certification, or he knew about the fraud from the beginning.

    There are plenty of other laws that may have been broken, but it’s critical that the government goes after the executives at the top.

    After never aggressively going after the senior bankers who melted down the economy in 2008, the Justice Department promised to improve and insist on individual accountability in the “Yates memo” it released last year.

    We have to hold Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s feet to the fire to follow through. She heads the Justice Department, and ultimately it’s her call whether they will aggressively pursue the senior executives behind the Wells Fargo scandal.

    Sign the petition to Loretta Lynch and the DOJ: Criminally investigate senior Wells Fargo executives for their involvement in the fraudulent accounts scandal. Aggressively prosecute all illegal behavior you uncover.