Is This Normal? Can I Get a Meeting with the Attorney General?

09/27/13

I'm floored that Attorney General Eric Holder was willing to take a private meeting with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jaimie Dimon while the bank is under criminal investigation and negotiating an enormous civil (and possibly criminal) settlement.  I can't recall something like this meeting happening before. There's not anything illegal about such a meeting, but the optics are really bad and underscore the privileged position of the too-big-to-fail banks.  

Yes, perhaps the AG should have some level of involvement in a multi-billion dollar settlement, but I would be quite surprised if he was very hands on with it, and meeting personally with Dimon certainly adds a explicit political flavor to the settlement discussions.   And it shows the special solicitious treatment and access that Dimon and JPM and other too-big-to-fail banks receive in DC.  

Who else is able to call up the AG and just get a meeting like that when their firm is under criminal investigation?  Do other citizens get talk things through mano-a-mano with the AG himself? That Dimon even thought to initiate direct contact with Holder suggests that he has no sense of his place in society--or perhaps that he in fact does.  Bottom line is that Dimon (and JPM) shouldn't get any more special treatment than any other citizen, but it sure looks like he did. 

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