The Chickenshit Club

Starred review from August 7, 2017
Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Eisinger, who writes for ProPublica, provides a convincing answer to one of the main questions left lingering from the 2008 financial crisis: with so much evidence of intentional fraud, why were no top bankers charged? The book opens with a 2002 speech that James Comey, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, gave to his staff in which he derisively referred to those who had never had a trial end unsuccessfully as members of “the chickenshit club”—too scared to pursue valid but risky prosecutions. Eisinger maintains that derogatory designation could be applied more broadly to the entire Justice Department itself. He provides an accessible background to the current situation, starting with the 1929 crash and the development of the term “white collar crime” shortly thereafter, through to the growth of and aggressive posture adopted by the SEC in the 1970s. Since the 2008 financial crisis, he notes, the Justice Department has moved away from charging individuals to settling out of court with corporations. Eisinger attributes this risk aversion to several factors, including the fear—misguided, he argues—that indictments could cause collateral consequences, such as company-wide layoffs. Many readers will agree with Eisinger’s conclusion that corporate officers now “possess the ability to commit crimes with impunity”—and that that immunity is both a symptom of a broken justice system and a threat to American democracy. Agent: Chris Calhoun, Chris Calhoun Agency.