Stop Loretta Lynch now

Let me put it this way: If Republicans don't stop the nomination of Loretta Lynch to the office of attorney general, they just won't ever stop anyone for any reason for any position at any time.

The case against Lynch has gotten eminently stronger since her name was first mentioned as a replacement for Eric Holder.

Most people shrugged their shoulders and just assumed it was another political appointment in Barack Obama mold. Clearly, she wasn't going to change the direction of the most politicized Justice Department in American history, but few thought there was a compelling case against Lynch based on her experience.

Now we all know better – at least anyone who is awake and paying attention.

It turns out Lynch was responsible for the Justice Department's investigation of the biggest bank crimes since BCCI and strangely opted not to prosecute anyone for provable and systemic money-laundering by mega-bank HSBC for drug cartels and terrorist organizations.

Instead, HSBC was allowed to settle the case with a big fine. No prosecution of any executives. No jail time for aiding terrorists and drug kingpins to the tune of billions. And, frankly, no guarantees the bank isn't still involved in this dirty business.

To make matters worse, Lynch never even talked to the key whistleblower from inside HSBC who brought the information and documentation to the attention of the public after being specifically ignored by the Justice Department for a year prior to the breaking of the stories in WND. Even more egregious, no one else from the Justice Department bothered to talk to him about what he experienced inside HSBC before getting fired for expressing concerns about the massive money-laundering operation he had witnessed.

Does that make sense? Only if the fix was in from the beginning – with the Justice Department determined to whitewash HSBC's crimes. Maybe it was another case of a bank being too big to fail. Or maybe the bank bought its way out of criminal prosecution.

Whatever happened, the last chance to find out rests with the U.S. Senate, which has a responsibility to treat this appointment with more care and scrutiny than it was going to offer before senators realized the full extent of Lynch's involvement in the HSBC case.

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Since HSBC was allowed to pay its way out of the most grievous financial crimes a bank could face, there have been many that suspected the worst.

On Dec. 12, 2012, Lynch, acting in her capacity as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, signed for the federal government a "deferred prosecution agreement" in which HSBC admitted to willfully engaging in a multi-billion dollar criminal money-laundering scheme involving money from Mexican drug cartels and Middle Eastern terrorists organizations.

HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion in fines to the federal government in exchange for an agreement by the Department of Justice to forgo filing criminal prosecutions against any HSBC management or employees. That may sound like a steep fine, but not if the profits from the money-laundering operation were greater than the punishment. And still unknown to the public is what safeguards were put in place by the Justice Department to ensure HSBC didn't continue its nefarious activities.

Thankfully, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has launched an investigation into the matter. He cited the concern as a reason to delay Senate confirmation of Lynch, who was nominated to replace Eric Holder as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States.

"If Loretta Lynch and [the Justice Department] swept under the rug a serious money-laundering scheme involving Mexican drug cartels and terrorist organizations, we need to know a heck of a lot more about it," Vitter said. "This is especially true since American citizens may be completely unaware that their identities – including names and Social Security numbers – were compromised in this fraud."

Vitter has already done something Lynch never did – talk with the Whistleblower.

It's time to put the brakes on the Lynch nomination until there is full public disclosure over the handling of the HSBC scandal.

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