A single e-mail from you could help us recover $300 million

Posted January 12th, 2006 by Thom K in the USA

If you read about us singing at the Hayward Demos Democratic Club potluck, you'll know about Ann Fagan Ginger of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute. Ginger provided information on a little known tool for Americans to use to fight federal government abuse and corruption. Individuals like you and me can use The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to file complaints about abuse and corruption that are required to be investigated ending with a report issued to Congress about their findings. This sounds like it's better than RICO before the ruling class pulled the teeth out of it.

Since hearing about the OIG last week, I've been trying to think of a good first test case in order to make a complaint. My initial concern is that we still don't have a complete count of the Katrina dead and a complete list of everyone who has been left homeless from the hurricane. While I still plan to work on a complaint for the victims of Katrina, I've found a much easier first case to file a complaint about on the Say No to Pombo blog.

According to the LA times, "Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained by The Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.
The investigation was ultimately dropped."

This sounds like something the FDIC's Inspector General should investigate. Here's a blurb about the FDIC OIG from their web site:

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) is an independent unit that conducts audits, investigations, and other reviews of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's (FDIC) programs and operations. The OIG promotes the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of FDIC programs and operations, and protects against fraud, waste, and abuse, to assist and augment the FDIC's contribution to the stability of, and public confidence in, the nation's financial system.

So how do we file a complaint with the OIG?

1. After reading about the abuse, my first step was to Google the key words, "FDIC" "Inspector General" and I was rewarded with their web site.

2. Next, I called the FDIC OIG's hotline number, at 1-800-964-3342. There, the recorded message says that they can also be contacted via e-mail at ighotline@fdic.gov.

3. After learning that I could also e-mail, I wrote the following complaint to request an investigation into this and have the FDIC reinstate its efforts to recover our $300 million.

Dear FDIC Inspector General:

I'm writing to file a complaint about what appears to be an obstruction of the FDIC's operations by several congressional representatives and FDIC employees to recover funds from Charles Hurwitz. I'm also requesting that if you find there is wrong-doing on the part of these congressional representatives and employees of the FDIC in dropping this fund recovery attempt, that the FDIC resume it's pursuit of these ill-gotten funds.

On January 8, 2006 the Los Angeles Times published an article, "A Donor Who Had Big Allies; DeLay and two others helped put the brakes on a federal probe of a businessman. Evidence was published in the Congressional Record." by Times staff writers Richard A. Serrano and Stephen Braun. This article stated the following which leads to my complaint about the FDIC not enforcing it's fiduciary responsibility to the American people.

From the Los Angels Times:

In a case that echoes the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, two Northern California Republican congressmen used their official positions to try to stop a federal investigation of a wealthy Texas businessman who provided them with political contributions.

Reps. John T. Doolittle and Richard W. Pombo joined forces with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to oppose an investigation by federal banking regulators into the affairs of Houston millionaire Charles Hurwitz, documents recently obtained byThe Times show. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was seeking $300 million from Hurwitz for his role in the collapse of a Texas savings and loan that cost taxpayers $1.6 billion.

The investigation was ultimately dropped.

The effort to help Hurwitz began in 1999 when DeLay wrote a letter to the chairman of the FDIC denouncing the investigation of Hurwitz as a "form of harassment and deceit on the part of government employees." When the FDIC persisted, Doolittle and Pombo -- both considered proteges of DeLay -- used their power as members of the House Resources Committee to subpoena the agency's confidential records on the case, including details of the evidence FDIC investigators had compiled on Hurwitz.

Then, in 2001, the two congressmen inserted many of the sensitive documents into the Congressional Record, making them public and accessible to Hurwitz's lawyers, a move that FDIC officials said damaged the government's ability to pursue the banker.

The FDIC's chief spokesman characterized what Doolittle and Pombo did as "a seamy abuse of the legislative process." But soon afterward, in 2002, the FDIC dropped its case against Hurwitz, who had owned a controlling interest in the United Savings Assn. of Texas. United Savings' failure was one of the worst of the S&L debacles in the 1980s.

Recovering this money would be a great help in our country's time of need when we can't even purchase body armor for our troops overseas.

Regards,

Thom Kunselman

Hayward, California

Please help pressure the FDIC Office of Inspector General into investigating this apparent abuse of power by three congressmen and negligence by FDIC employees in dropping this court case by e-mailing a complaint to ighotline@fdic.gov or calling in your complaint to 1-800-964-3342.

I'm counting on you to help make this one more successful campaign to fight corruption in our government.

Thank you.