Just after announcing his resignation as U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder has accepted a top job with Wall Street finance giant JPMorgan Chase.
Starting in early November, Holder will serve as JPMorgan Chase’s chief compliance officer, where his responsibilities will include lobbying Congress on the company’s behalf and ensuring it “gets the best deal possible” from any new proposed financial regulations. Holder will also fetch morning coffee and breakfast orders for CEO Jamie Dimon and board members.
For his efforts, Holder will earn an annual salary of $77 million plus bonuses for a job well done.
In a statement, Holder said taking a job at JPMorgan Chase was the logical next step in his career, given the revolving door between financial companies and the government officials who are supposed to regulate these companies.
“By joining JPMorgan Chase, I’m simply cutting out the middleman -- the U.S. Justice Department -- and going to work directly for the great Jamie Dimon,” he said. “Plus, when Jamie Dimon calls you, or one of his many secretaries calls you, you pick up the phone immediately. Seriously, that’s what we do here in Washington.”
“We are extremely pleased to have Eric Holder, a dear friend and and tireless advocate for the interests of Wall Street, join our prestigious financial services firm where he belongs,” Dimon said in a press release. “Considering the awful s**t we did -- and boy did we do a lot of sleazy, ugly, ethically insidious s**t -- Mr. Holder always stood in our corner and defended us no matter what. Hell, I even got a 74 percent raise out of it!
“We know any of our fellow financial firms would have been happy to have Mr. Holder on staff, yet he chose us. We are sure he will fit right in with our company culture.”
Cowardly Lion of Wall Street
Before President Obama appointed him as attorney general, Holder was a corporate attorney at law firm Covington & Burling, which represented too-big-too-fail banks.
Despite serving as the United States’ top law enforcement official for for six years following the 2007-08 financial crisis and having the budget, Holder failed to hold anyone accountable and declined to prosecute banking executives who played a role in the meltdown. Instead the banks, including JPMorgan Chase, were bailed out and received miniscule fines that often weren’t collected, while the Justice Department went after the mortgage borrowers.
The news that Holder was resigning as attorney general was met with mixed responses from the public.
Reginald Cousins, a construction worker in Baltimore who lost his job and home after the housing bubble burst through fraudulent lending practices, said he was sorry to see Holder go.
“Eric Holder did what he had to do in order to save this country’s economy,” he said as he rummaged through some trash cans for scrap metal and food.
Johnny Weeks, who lost his house shortly after DOJ agents raised his marijuana dispensary, said Holder was a self-serving hypocrite.
“Oh well. At least he was cool with gay marriage.”
