with alayne fleischmann, the whistleblower who helped the justice department forced the bank to pay one of the largest fines in american history. you might be surprised what she says about the bank as well as the obama white house. she is featured in a new rolling stone piece a recently returned matt taibbi. >> the significance of this story to me is that it talks a lot about the legacy of eric holder. we finally have somebody from the inside who is telling us what a lot of us expected all along, that the obama administration did have enough evidence to proceed against a lot of these banks, and they just did not do enough with that evidence and those witnesses. and we finally have someone like alayne fleischmann who can tell us all about that and all that went on. >> all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a federal appeals court in ohio has dealt a blow to marriage equality in a move expected to bring the issue before the supreme court. the appeals court upheld the right of four states -- kentucky, michigan, ohio and tennessee -- to ban same-sex marriage. the decision is at odds with rulings issued by similar courts in favor of marriage equality, a split that will likely force the supreme court to take action. last month the supreme court rejected appeals from five states that sought to ban same-sex marriage, causing a cascading impact that saw marriage equality legalized in more than 30 states. in a statement responding to thursday's ruling, chase strangio of the aclu said -- "we will be filing for supreme court review right away and hope that through this deeply disappointing ruling we will be able to bring a uniform rule of equality to the entire country." house speaker john boehner has warned president obama against taking executive action on immigration, one day after obama said he would act by the end of the year. obama had previously delayed steps on immigration until after the midterm elections, which brought a wave of republican triumphs on tuesday. speaking at his first news conference since the midterms, boehner threatened to withhold cooperation if obama moves ahead. >> i believe the president continues to act on his own, he is going to poison the well. when you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. and he is going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path. >> speaker boehner also vowed to prioritize votes to approve the keystone xl pipeline and repeal obama's signature healthcare law. house republicans have already voted more than 50 times to repeal obamacare. u.s. airstrikes have reportedly hit a compound belonging to the islamist rebel group ahrar al-sham. one of the top groups fighting certain president bashar al-assad. the strikes came as the u.s. targeted the al-qaeda-linked nusra front. on thursday, ahrar al-sham said the strikes destroyed one of its bases and killed civilians including children. an unnamed pentagon official told the wall street journal the group was not targeted intentionally. speaking thursday, chair of the joint chiefs of staff martin dempsey compared the fight against the islamic state in syria to a rubik's cube. cook's north of aleppo right now rubik'st -- it is a cube. every time you touch it, a changes in your something new to consider. trueis a case of staying to the principal that we will over timdefeat isil. >> a new probe finds the pentagon has failed to act on claims by more than 600 u.s. servicemembers who have reported being exposed to chemical weapons in iraq since 2003. the numbers came to light through an internal pentagon review after a new york times report last month found the bush administration concealed the discovery of chemical weapons in iraq that had been developed with u.s. support in the 1980s -- and then denied medical care to the wounded u.s. soldiers involved. the initial report put the number of wounded soldiers at 17, but the pentagon's own records now reveal that 629 servicemembers described suspected exposure to chemical agents on post-combat health surveys. according to the times after , years of failing to properly track or treat the victims, the pentagon will launch outreach efforts, including a hotline. the new secretary general of nato has made a surprise visit to afghanistan. jens stoltenberg vowed to continue nato's role in afghanistan beyond this year's pullout date. >> we will open a new chapter. the future of afghanistan will be an afghan hands. continue.pport will we will start a new mission to -- assistinsist afghan forces. we will also continue our financials of work. discussed, we want to further develop our long-term partnership with afghanistan. >> afghan troop deaths have increased since afghans took a more active role, with more than 4,600 dying this year alone -- more than twice the number of u.s. soldiers killed since the war began. an estimated 12,000 troops will remain in afghanistan beyond this year, most of them from the u.s. in gaza, a wave of explosions targeted homes and cars belonging to members of the fatah party of palestinian president mahmoud abbas. no casualties have been reported. the targets included a stage weeks be used in the next memorial for former palestinian president and fatah leader yasar arafat. the bombings also come amidst rising tensions between palestinians and israelis. earlier today news agencies reported an israeli settler had crashed into a wall after trying to run over a palestinian man in the oced west bank. lo two allegit and ns by palestiniansn wednesday. in one, the suspect was shot dead by police after killing a pedestri. in the second, the man turned himself in, saying he hit and injured three israeli soldiers byccident. the international criminal court has declined to take action over israel's deadly 2010 raid on a gaza-bound aid flotilla, which killed 10 turkish activists. chief icc prosecutor fatou bensouda said no action would be taken, even though war crimes had likely been committed when israeli commandos stormed the aid ship mavi marmara. >> i have determined there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the jurisdictionf the international criminal court were committed on one of the vessels. marmara was intercepted in may 2010. however, after carefully assessing all relevant considerations, i concluded that the potential case or cases likely arising from an investigation into this incident would not be sufficient gravity to justify further action by the court. >> a new investigation has found more than 340 multinational corporations have avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes by obtaining secret deals in luxembourg. the report was published by the consortium of investigative journalists in collaboration with more than 80 journalists across 26 countries. the journalists obtained nearly 28,000 pages of confidential documents which reveal that some of the world's largest companies, including pepsi, ikea, aig, coach and deutsche bank, have channeled hundreds of billions of dollars through luxembourg -- a small country in western europe known as a "magical fairyland" for corporate tax dodgers. some firms have secured effective tax rates of less than 1%. sierra leone is becoming the focal point of concern over the record outbreak of ebola in west africa. the number of cases is continuing to rise with nearly 1,200 new cases in the past three weeks alone, nearly triple the number in liberia. ebola treatment units across sierra leone only has about 400 beds. a former navy seal has publicly identified himself as the shooter who killed osama bin laden. robert o'neill told the washington post he fired the fatal shot during the raid on bin laden's compound in 2011. navy leaders have criticized o'neill for speaking out, and an anonymous source who spoke to reers has cast doubt on o'neill's claim, suggesting the fatal shot was shot by someone else. president obama has reportedly sent a letter to iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali khamanei outlining a mutual interest in opposing islamic state militants in iraq and syria. the wall street journal reports the letter was sent last month, and also sought to boost efforts at a deal on iran's nuclear program. white house press secretary josh earnest said us policy toward iran remains unchanged. >> the united states will not cooperate militarily with iran in that effort. share intelligence. other interest in this outcome is something that is been widely commented on, something on a couple of occasions has been discussed on the sidelines of other conversations. >> belgian police have fired tear gas and water cannons on more than 100,000 protesters who gathered to oppose austerity policies set out by the new government. the government, which took power earlier this month plans to , freeze wages, slash public services and raise the pension age. voters in the spanish region of catalonia are heading to the polls this sunday for a vote on whether to secede from spain. the vote is nonbinding and will not be recognized by spain. demonstrations in support of secession have brought hundreds of thousands of catalans into the streets. in brazil, authorities are investigating a possible massacre by police in the northern city of belem after 10 people were killed in a single night. the killings took place tuesday night just hours after a policeman was shot and killed by gunmen, sparking suspicions of a revenge attack. in the united states, protesters gathered in front of the white house and in over a dozen other cities across the country to call for the obama administration to keep the internet free and open. last week, the wall street journal reported the administration is considering a "hybrid" plan on net neutrality that would expand government oversight of the relationship between corporate internet service providers, or isps, like comcast, and content companies like netflix. but the plan would not extend such protections to the relationship between isps and users. critics say the plan could still allow online censorship and discriminatory internet "fastlanes." thursday's protests were bolstered by a recent victory in hungary, where mass protests successfully defeated a proposed tax on internet use. the fbi has admitted one of its agents impersonated an associated press reporter in order to catch a 15-year-old bomb suspect in washington state. fbi director james comey acknowledged the move in a letter to the new york times after last week's revelations the fbi used a fake ap story in the case. comey said the agent sent the suspect a link to the fake ap story which contained software that revealed his location. ap executive editor kathleen carroll said the revelation -- "doubles our concern and outrage, expressed earlier to attorney general eric holder, about how the agency's unacceptable tactics undermine ap and the vital distinction between the government and the press." the former head of prisons in mississippi has been charged with orchestrating a massive corruption scheme that saw him receive about $1 million dollars in bribes in exchange for state contracts to private prison firms. a newly unsealed 49-count indictment accuses christopher epps of directing contracts to private firms with ties to a former state legislator. a lawsuit filed by the aclu and southern poverty law center describes conditions at a prison operated by one such firm as hellish, calling it "an extremely dangerous facility operating in a perpetual state of crisis." a federal probe has found princeton university violated the gender equality law title ix by mishandling cases of sexual assault. in a rare move, the department of education found princeton violation the law by imposing a standard of proof that favored students accused of sexual assault and by failing to promptly respond to complaints. princeton will now have to return some tuition to three impacted students, and re-examine old cases dating back to 2011. more than 80 schools are currently under federal investigation for their handling of sexual assault. students at syracuse university in upstate new york have occupied the ground floor of the administration building to protest the school's decisions to close a sexual assault resource center and cut funding for scholarships for people of color. the students have issued a range of demands, including greater transparency, improved mental health resources and more community participation in decisions. in fort lauderdale, florida, a 90-year-old man is facing potential jail time for serving food to the homeless. arnold abbott, known as chef arnold, has been cited twice in the past week after a city ordinance went into effect that bans feeding the homeless. he described one of the encounters with police to a local news station. >> one of the police officers came over and said, drop that plate right now. set a was carrying a weapon. these are the poorest of the poor. they have nothing. they don't have a roof over their head. who could turn them away? >> and those are some of the headlines, this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. >> welcome to all our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. >> before we move on to our exclusive, this is the end of election week. you did a very interesting piece in the new york daily news about the issue of immigration. >> my column in today's paper counter poses the republican saying it would be a war president obama moves forward on his promise of executive or of an executive order on immigration reform. the republicans don't want amnesty or some kind of amnesty for undocumented immigrants, but immediately have said after the election they want amnesty for corporate america. one of the big issues they will be pushing forward now in terms of tax reform is this amnesty or holiday for repatriated profits from corporations around the world. about $2 trillion are sitting overseas, many of microsoft and electric.the they don't want to bring it back to the country because they would have to pay to 35% for tax. republicans are pressing and president obama in the press, 20 was asked after the election seemed open to the idea of reducing that tax for one year to maybe 5%, which is what corporate america would like, but he wants in exchange to use that money for infrastructure investment. a huge windfall for corporate america. they have been lobbying for it fiercely. republicans want amnesty for that, that they certainly don't workersfor immigrant who have been living and document it in the country, many of them working hard and staying out of trouble for decades. so we will see how the democratic party and president onma response to the choices this amnesty issue. >> and we will have a link to your article at democracynow.org . >> a year ago this month the justice department announced the banking giant jporgan chase had agreed to pay $13 billion to settle charges that it had routinely overstated the quality of mortgages it was selling to investors. toxic mortgageecurities started turning bad, investors lost faith in the banking system, and a housing crisis turned into the 2008 financial crisis. it led to millions of home foreclosures. new york attorney general eric schneiderman unveiled the settlement in one of the biggest white collar crime cases in history. >> not only will chase after paid the largest settlement levied upon a financial institution, but it has admitted in our statement of facts that its own employees, employees of bear stearns and washington mutual, made material as representations to the investing public about a large number of residential mortgage-backed security's that they issued prior to the crash in 2008. this settlement is a major victory in the fight to hold accountable those who were responsible for that crash. >> soon after the jp morgan chase deal was reached, u.s. attorney general eric holder discussed the bank's misdeeds during an interview with nbc news pete williams. >> the packaged loans they knew it did not pass its own stated due diligence test. who the whistleblower expressed concerns about what the strength of these mortgage backed securities were and they put them out there to the market and said there were perfectly fine when in fact, they were not. >> to be clear, you're saying jpmorgan's conduct country but it to the housing collapse? >> jp morgan another banks are in semi-kinds of things that led directly to the collapse of our economy in 2008 and 2009. >> during that interview, attorney general eric holder mentioned the role of an unnamed whistleblower from inside jpmorganchase who aided the justice department's case against the bank. well until this week, that whistleblower had never spoken publicly about what she witnessed inside the bank. that changed yesterday when rolling stone magazine published a major new piece by matt taibbi headlined, "the $9 billion witness: meet jpmorgan chase's worst nightmare." >> in the article, fleischmann criticizes not only jp morgan's banking practices but how government regulators and the holder justice department responded to the bank's lawbreaking. today in her first televised interview, alayne fleischmann, joins us here on democracy now along with matt taibbi who has closely covered the financial crisis for years. his latest book "divide: american injustice in the age of the wealth gap," has just come out in paperback. we welcome you both to democracy now! alayne fleischmann, started the beginning. why did you decide to come forward and how did you end up at chase? >> for a long time, i was expecting it to come out. i have been talking to the government for 2.5 years. at first i went through the sec and then the civil division of the doj. at some stage after watching all of these major banks have deals that actually the facts get wiped away, started to feel if i don't come forward, there's a real chance of that happening here as well. in terms of jp chase, i started there in march 2006 at the height of the boom. when i started, everything seemed normal. i didn't really rely some of the things are happening in the background. ad in thing started to change couple of months after his been there. talks when you went to work there, what specifically was your job? walk us through how you began to huge problem the bank was part of. >> i was a deal manager. record and it between his when bringing in loans that would be sold to investors. i first noticed there was a problem when they brought in a new person to do our diligence, which is just the review of the loans themselves to make sure they are of good quality. as soon as he came in, we suddenly -- this wall came down between myself and a group that was doing this review. you could not get information you would normally get. on top of that, there was immediately a note you know policy. he would not send e-mails. we weren't allowed to send him e-mails. he would actually come out and yell at you if you sent him an e-mail. >> what was the reason? >> it was never given, which was extremely worrisome. only, the reason why you have a complaint intelligence department is to actually have written policies about what you're doing to build to explain to people how you are making her decisions. this was the opposite of what you would normally expect. >> when you say to review the quality of the loans, for people who are not aware, you were in a sense certifying these individual loans could be packaged into a group of securities to then be sold to investors in a huge package. you had to go through every individual loan? >> yes, that is pretty much what happens. you are taking the actual loan files that was done between the lender and the borrower and looking at them to make sure everything looks right. does the person have enough money to pay off their loan? do they have a history where we think they wl pay this loan? and if we find they don't, then we're actually not supposed to purchase the loan. and certainly, should not be selling them to other investors without at least telling them there something wrong with them. >> what was the smoking gun for you? whaterything about -- really started happening in particular became apparent in october was that sometimes we had deals coming in win even though i wasn't the person looking at the loan, you could tell from where i was there something wrong with them. the greenpoint ill, which is what matt talks about in his article, even when the loans came in, they were very, very old, which usually you try to who pull the sons and seldom within -- you try to police loanthree months. these loans were going back to the beginning of the year. if you work in industry, you know that means they could not either seldom because buyers were telling them they were good or worse, they were sold and had missed a bunch of payment so they had actually been sold back to the originator. any of those loans you would not normally sell to investors as regular loans. >> matt, you refer your article is basicallys selling old, beat-up used cars as if they were new. >> that is exactly what she is talking about. essentially what the bank is doing, there are companies out there, these mortgage lenders like countrywide and in this case, it was an originator called greenpoint, they would go out to neighborhoods and during these boom periods, they were giving mortgagors -- mortgages to anyone and everyone. offering these advantageous loans to people whether they could afford the houses are not. >> like liars loans forced did income when no one even checked if the person had the income. >> exactly right. liars loans. the fbi warned there would be an epidemic of these loans back in 2004. the industry ignore these warnings. the government ignore these warnings. there was this huge influx of the stated income loans or could just say they made an enormous amount of money and nobody would check. so the bank buys all of these loans, and what they were doing was, essentially, throwing them into big pools. making hamburger of them and selling that hamburger to , insuranceds companies, hedge funds -- all kinds of investors. typically, ordinary people were the people on the other end buying this stuff. they were investing in the securities. and often did not know it. what alayne fleischmann was involved with, was making sure these loans were good quality so pension funds when they bought the securities were not buying something that was going to blowup on them a year later. what she found was that were buying loans that were very dubious quality am works truly risky and that should not have been made into that hamburger. talks were going to take a break and we come back, we want to find out what happened when you went your colleagues, your superiors and then went outside the company to the u.s. government, right on up to eric holder and the obama administration. today, a democracy now! broadcast exclusive, alayne fleischmann is with us, the jp chase whistleblower, speaking for the first time about her experiences is still manager at jpmorgan where she says she witnessed massive criminal securities fraud in the bank's mortgage operations during the time leading up to the financial crisis. and matt taibbi is with us, award-winning journalist with rolling stone magazine. his latest piece is headlined, "the $9 billion witness." stay with us. ♪ [music break] lavern baker, "money blues." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we are speaking to j.p. morgan chase whistleblower alayne fleischmann and reporter matt taibbi, his latest piece, "the $9 billion witness." last november, attorney general eric holder appeared on nbc news just after the j.p. morgan settlement was reached. what about those who say, well, the message here is, if you do wrong, you just pay for it and move along? >> this is not simply something that j.p. morgan smiled a check and smilingly said, this is a good deal for us. this is pain on that institution. talks was this a template we can expect to see other settlements? >> i think the way in which this case has been settled as a template for what we can expect both in terms of getting maximum amounts of money and then using that money so that we get it to people who suffered the raised him out, that is either investors or homeowners. >> that is eric holder. alayne fleischmann, let's take a back a step. when he started to alert your colleagues and supervisors at j.p. morgan chase, what did they say? >> what happened is, the transaction at one point just stops. 40% of the loans had problems with them. when we tried raising this issue with our superiors, what actually happened is they just started yelling at the diligence managers who were clearing the yelling, parading them, making them do reports over and over again. it became clear although they would not say it, it was going to be like that until they would clear the loans. what actually happened is these loans started to be cleared with basically just the brute force of what was going on there. i raised it first with the managing director and executive director, and could not get any response. after that, i decided the best possibility would be to write a letter to another managing director than actually laid out everything i was seeing. i used the greenpoint deal as an example, which is why the letter specifically says exactly who was doing what all over this deal. but it also lays out general problems in our diligence that the salespeople were being not normalhich is and there seems to be a lot of pressure on the diligence managers to clear loans which should not have been purchased or sold. talks and imports of putting these down, putting all of the facts down in the letter, what that meant inside the company? >> it used to be the way you could stop these things from happening, if you write a memo that lays out what is happening, the management will go forward -- once go forward because they realize if they do, there will be this evidence of what happened. >> a paper trail. >> the big worry with the settlements and the way they're being done -- and i'm not deal the whistleblower in these cases -- you have these e-mails and these memos, but nothing happens. a fine gets paid and all of the facts gets washed away. as a whistleblower, you're thinking, i did all of this and the doj has all of this, but for some reason, they are not going forward on it. >> what happened when you went outside the company? how did you go outside? i one issue i had, although warned not to securitize loans, there was no way i was blocked off, especially after i had raised complaints, from ing able see in up the data or the diligence process -- which right there shows something is wrong. so after i left j.p. morgan, i had no idea for full four years that the loans have been securitized. on one hand, i was worried they would, but i really thought no one would ever actually securitize those loans. >> this is an important distinction because alayne had no idea a crime had been committed until she had concrete knowledge that the loans at ackley been resold to some of the else -- actually have been resold to some of the else. they are certainly allowed to buy as many risky mortgages they want, it is not until they go to some investor and represented than that these are aaa rated securities or whatever, highly rated securities that they're actually committing fraud. she had no way of knowing that, even after she was laid off from the company. she had no knowledge of what actually happened, so she cannot actually report the crime yet officially saw one half of the deal. >> and you are laid off the beginning of 2008? actually, before the crash. already, there was turmoil in the homeland market, but there was not that crash that happened. so the bank, wind jamie dimon and other leaders later said they had no realization that the market was tanking as fast as it your memos were certain indicating to them there were major problems. tothey actually said completely opposite things. there was an article in fortune magazine later in 2008 in which they report that jamie dimon, the ceo of the company, new as early as october of 2006 the industry was rife with underwriting problems. although to things alayne is talking about, the company was aware of this. there are quotes in which the ceo is telling the subordinates him a we have to get out of these investments because this whole thing can go up in smoke. meanwhile, so chase is selling its own investments in these kinds of mortgages, but they're taking the same mortgages and selling them to investors and not telling them they have these concerns. later, when they testify in front of the inquiry commission in 2010, jamie dimon said the opposite. he said, essentially, well, we had no idea that these things were happening. we got caught up in the fact that housing prices were just one continually upward. >> so talked about the settlement. what happened next? happened ilement guess he your ago this month -- a year ago this month. what is interesting, alayne, by that point, had only talk to civil investigators and u.s. attorney's office in sacramento. she talked to some very talented lawyers there who seemed very anxious to press this case. they were about to release a very detailed civil complaint against chase in september of last year. just hours before the press conference when they were going to announce that, reportedly, jamie dimon, the ceo of chase, called up the assistant attorney --eral and asked to read renegotiate and they canceled a press conference and went back into negotiations. a few months later, they had a settlement in which they paid a lot of money, but none of the facts came out. >> just like if you were in trouble -- >> i could call up the mayor or the president and have the court case go away. that is exactly what happened in this case. they basically put in a phone call to the very top of the criminal justice system. >> what happened to your contacts with the justice department? if you could talk about that process, how detailed did they want to get into the information you had? >> my first contact, exactly after four years i was working in calgary and i got a call -- >> because you come from canada. >> yes. he introduced himself as an investor for the enforcement division. i paused. he said, you were not expecting to hear from you, were you? after that they set up my first interview, which was very short. maybe an hour, hour and a half. there were only interested in one deal. even though i kept bringing up greenpoint and that the letter i had written, they were not actually interested in that will stop the sec settlement was based on that other deal. it wasn't until later about december 2012 that i first met with the doj investigators. it was very clear this was going to be very different. as soon as they walked in, you could tell they knew these securities up and down, and there were really anxious to go forward with it and felt very comfortable going forward with the case. so in that meeting, it was a very detailed meeting, hours of going through of how the process works and what happened. and then i had an actual 2013,tion in about may where they kneel down a lot more of that. and you could see at that stage the first, i got to find out for the first time ever how many of these loans at actually gone into her had been sold to investors in one pool and it was hundreds of millions of dollars with nothing actually disclosed about the problems with the loans. to really see what their case was. they clearly realized they had a credible case there. >> testifying before the senate judiciary committee in 2013, attorney general eric holder suggested that some banks are 'too big to jail.' >> i am concerned the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do bring a kernel charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. and i think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large. i'm not talking about hsbc, this is a more general comment. i think it has an inhibiting impact on our ability to bring resolutions that i think would be more appropriate. >> matt taibbi, respond to what attorney general eric holder has testified. >> is a crazy thing. when the leading law enforcement official in the nation comes out well, some companies are just so big that we can prosecute them no matter what they do -- in that case, he was testifying in the wake of a settlement the government had entered into with hsbc, which is the biggest bank in europe, the ,iggest bank in great britain which had admitted to laundering over $800 billion for a pair of drug cartels and south america. if you cannot send some of to gel for laundering $800 billion of drug money because the company is too big, clearly, something is precisely wrong. but yet this became sort of the unofficial, official policy of the justice department. greatly affected the way they dealt with copies like jp morgan chase, like citigroup, like bank of america. way to effectnd a some kind of resolution that did not involve criminal charges, did not involve penalties to individuals and also did not put the facts of any -- what they had actually done out to the public. oldn that vein, the monopoly board game, get out of jail free instead of paying $200, you pay $2 billion to get out of jail. the amount of money that these governments are getting as a result of this -- i mean, i just checked with the new york state comptroller. new york state alone this year is getting out of its bank settlements with wall street, a windfall of $5 billion. that is just new york state. other states are getting their share, and of course, the federal government is getting huge infusions. they suddenly have all of this cash and this other stuff you talked about, which is consumer relief portions. the government action gets cash settlements, but they supposedly negotiate additional money for the citizens, consumer relief. could you talk about that? >> first of all, the settlements -- they always come up with a big number, but the numbers actually when you look at the accounting, it turns out to be smaller than they announce. in the case of the chase settlement, the number they announced was $13 billion but there are couple of factors here. one, $7 billion of that was alldeductible, which means of us american citizens, anyone who pays taxes, actually picked up the check for about two point $4 billion worth of the settlement. we paid for part of that settlement, which is crazy. if we get a speeding ticket, an ordinary person cannot deduct that when we pay our taxes. but these people get to write a tax reduction. $4 billion of the settlement was what they call consumer relief and what this really boils down to, there is some loan forgiveness where they're allowing people to pay less principles toward their home loans, but mostly, it comes down to letting people have a little extra time to payoff their payments. it is not always the bank that is actually doing that. it is often the investors in those loans who are actually giving the relief. it is not really the bank paying $4 billion, it is just a number. >> i want to turn to president obama speaking at september when attorney general eric holder announced that he would resign. safeguard our markets from in a collation, consumers from financial fraud. since 2009, the justice department has brought more than 60 cases against financial institutions. and one some of the largest settlements in history. this is related to the financial crisis. billion,vering $85 much of it returned ordinary americans who were badly hurt. response?ibbi, your >> the first thing a with is, ok, they collected a bunch of money but there isn't a single individual in this entire tableau who is actually individually paying any kind of penalty for any of these misdeeds. all of that money came out of the pockets of shareholders. no executives had to pay a fine. no executives headed to a single stay in jail. >> what was the actual crime you feel jamie dimon committed that you feel he should be in jail for? >> i cannot stand here and say jamie dimon committed a crime, but certainly there are people in these companies, in cases like alayne's, who would be targets of criminal fraud prosecutions, probably at a lower level than jamie dimon, which would be hard to prove, but who knows because they did not try. in a normal case, you take everybody was guilty and try to roll them up the chain and see how far you could go. that is exactly what they did not do in this case. they did not aggressively go after everybody. they did not follow every lead. instead, they went in a back room, decided on a number, and made the whole thing go away. yes, that is the kind of resolution that -- but i think it is insufficient. >> in your article, after the settlement agreement with j.p. morgan chase, the stock of the company went up dramatically. the stock price went up dramatically and jamie dimon ended up getting a huge raise from his board of directors. >> in the first weeks after the settlement was announced, jp morgan chase went up 6% which translated into about $12 million worth of value. that is most of yourself right there. was more than the entire settlement if you look at it with the $9 billion. yes, jamie dimon a few weeks after being dinged for the largest realtor a find in history of capitalism, got a 74% chase board. drugs were going to go to break. when we come back, we'll hear senator elizabeth warren asking questions of jamie dimon about that raise. stay with us. ♪ [music break] >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. about "the $9 billion witness." today we talking with that woman, alayne fleischmann is a whistleblower who worked at j.p. morgan chase. she is speaking to us in this broadcast exclusive featured in matt taibbi's piece that came out and rolling stone this week. matt taibbi also with us. elizabeth moran criticized the size of jamie dimon's salary. >> in 2013 alone, jpmorgan spent nearly $17 billion to settle claims with the federal government, claims relating to its sale of fraudulent mortgage backed securities, illegal foreclosure practices act robo signing, it's manipulation of energy markets in california and the midwest, and its handling of the disastrous london whale trade. at the end of the year, jpmorgan received ae dimon 75% raise, bringing his total compensation to $20 million. now, you might think the presiding over activities that resulted in $17 billion in payouts for illegal conduct would hurt your case for a fat "theoan, but according to new york times," members of the jpmorgan board of directors thought that jamie dimon earned and i'm in part quoting, "by acting as chief negotiator as jpmorgan worked of boehnerg government settlements." >> that was senator elizabeth warren. i would like alayne fleischmann, the whistleblower within j.p. morgan chase, to respond. do you think part of what you exposed to the government earned jamie dimon this increase of 75%? >> i suppose the question is, whether you're concerned about making money or whether there criminal activity going on in the bank will stop there is an excellent website called jpmad lawyers have been tracking all of j.p. morgan's finds for fraud and illegal activity. there are actually at 29 billion in the last four years alone. the question that needs to be is, how is it you can be a ceo over $29 billion worth of fines and get a raise? it clearly shows there is no deterrent for these fes. it is just happening over and over again. if there are not any individuals held accountable, there is no reason for them to stop doing these very serious crimes. >> and nunnally that, i followed those fines are continually crimesng, where are the that are the basis of being fined? >> that is one of the important points. there's very little difference between civil securities fraud and colonel securities fraud or even how you can do this as a wire fraud case. once you have that strong of a civil fraud case, the liberal difference is you need a little more -- they had to intentionally do fraud. you have to prove it to a higher standard. you have to show beyond a reasonable doubt this is what they were doing. but when you look at these cases, these are some of the easiest white collar crime cases you're ever going to see. one of the things i think has been sold to the public is, well, these are really complex and difficult, or we really don't know who did what. first, in my case and what i've seen in other cases, there are all sorts of documents that show exactly who are making the decisions. the idea they are too complex -- these securities themselves that are sold to investors are complex. rely tooact investors about the quality of the loan, that is actually really easy. the fact that obviously, if you have people who can't afford the loans, there's going to be no money coming out of these loans. that is not difficult understand. >> alayne fleischmann, why didn't you go to the press at then and what made you decide to do it now? >> for long time i believe that this would come out, that the government would do their investigation. it has asked the taken a really longtime for me because for me, it is a little bit of an incredible thing to believe. but after watching all of these cases over and over again, at some stage, i'm in the position where if i keep silent and the statute of limitation runs or they do one of these agreements where they whitewash everything, then it is too late. which is what has happened over and over again so far. so i'm kind of change the pattern and come out first so filed is to either properly the way they would for any other criminal defendants, or explain why they are not doing it. reality thati, the despite all the claims of the obama administration that they are pursued all of these civil cases, that they never really went after the people who practically wrecked the world economy, and how that relates to this election results we just had where, obviously, americans across the board from democrats to republicans and independents are still furious about the economic situation and the failure of holding these people accountable? >> i think it is hard not to make a connection between the total lack of enthusiasm that we saw for the democratic party this past week -- for instance, their behavior in pushing investigations of the financial services committee. we saw with the occupy protests. i talk to people on wall street all the time. my sources come from wall street. they also the same thing. barack obama had an incredible opportunity in late 2008, just office, it is communicational skills, he could've gone to the mac and people and explained to them exactly what happened and said this is why the economy is bad, this is why you're losing your jobs, there was massive, like to be and not just an accident. then he could've gone up at a few people in jail and really put some heat on his words. instead, they swept it under the rug. even a people tell completely understand what happened, they sense that nothing was done. i think it is important to understand that. >> i presume, alayne fleischmann , you had a confidentiality agreement when he left j.p. morgan chase. are you violating that? what made you decide to take the risk? >> there are different arguments about whether i am or am not violating it because of the criminal nature of what i am bring forward. for me, at some stage, it is just sometimes you're involved with something that is bigger than you personally. even right now, there are still also looks of does all sorts of retirement pensions plans tried to get their money back. in a lot of cases, they don't know i have information. i now action to have in my e-mail contacts coming in, asking for help from me so they can get this money that was really still in from their investors, these retirees, and back to those people. for me, that is more important than anything that will happen to me. >> are you concerned about repercussions? at some stage, i think i decided this was more important. at the end of the day, i will be ok. i will figure something out. i will get through this. i think we're at a stage that unless a lot of people start coming forward and say we care about this, we now know what is happening and we want somebody do something about it, then this will just all pass in history. >> the government contacted you again this summer? >> yes, in august. >> do you feel this can reopen this information, these cases? >> i did meet with them and i was happy to see it was an enthusiastic group. the concern i have is what we have seen, even when there are really strong cases, like the ass, hsbc, they c still get hushed away. >> is often not the line investigators who are the problem. cases,ple who work these the career prosecutors who are doing the digging, oftentimes they're very talented and aggressive lawyers who really know what they're doing, but the problem is the political wing of the justice department can take these cases and do whatever they want with them. we saw in alayne' case and many other cases, they take these excellent investigations and then just turn them into these on the wrist settlements. that is what i think she's worried about. >> it is great to have you back, to see youpiece. it is in "rolling stone" not at first look. you had left "rolling stone" to be part of this new news organization. you tweeted in the racket this piece was coming out . but it did not happen. >> no, it did not. i think all i can really say about that is i really devastated by the way everything turned out. horriblereally situation all around. i am very, very sorry for the staff that is still there, the people i hired who took a leap of faith to come work for me. i am to bes happy as back at "rolling stone" which i always loved, i'm sad this piece is not out in "racket." it just did not work out that way. >> will racket launch? >> i don't know. i'm not at the company anymore. you would have to direct that question to them. they absolutely should. they have a talented group over there and some great young writers. there's no reason they could not. >> i want to close by asking about how you were judged, the and nowf eric holder that he is going to be leaving, in terms of his particular roles in going after these banks -- just this whole idea of bankers being able to call directly to the justice department to negotiate the deals and stop prosecutions at the lower levels? >> for years now, i've been covering a lot of this stuff. as of into a lot of people -- i have spoken to a lot of people in long for smith. there are two types of people i talk to who are prosecutors. one, the old school law enforcement type that want to get the bad guy at all cost and there really career civil servants who want to do their jobs and would see justice happen. then there is this new kind of person he was occurring in government now it comes out of the corporate defense sector. these are people who grew up as corporate lawyers defending companies like chase and bank of america. that is to eric holder is. very pointedly. he spent a lot of time in a company called cummington burling. this type of lawyer, law enforcement official, is much more interested in coming up with a settlement that everyone feels good about when they come out of the room as a closed -- as opposed to the old school where the bad guy gets his comeuppance at the end. his tenure was representative of a big seachange in the way we do white-collar crime in this country. >> i want to thank you both for being with us, matt taibbi. we will link to your piece at rolling stone called "the $9 , billion witness." and thank you to that woman, alayne fleischmann. thank you for joining us, the j.p. morgan chase whistleblower, former deal manager at jcpenney -- jpmorgan where she said she witnessed the bank's mortgage operations during the period leading up to the financial crisis. thank you to everyone for being with us. be speaking in princeton on sunday. check our website democracynow.org. democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for dundon: irelansteeped in traditions that stretch far back into the distant past. for 10,000 years, humans have lived on this island located off the western edge of europe, once at the edge of the known world and now a stepping stone to the new. we were building these vast temples in stone a thousand years before the egyptians built the pyramids. our next parish is new york or boston, across the wild and deep atlantic ocean. ireland is a land of contrasts, defined by beautiful, roll and rugged, savage cliffs. it's a country that has a profound respect for the land. farming started here 6,000 years ago, and we've never looked back.