It appears that the New York Times Business section has defended Jon Corzine, former CEO of MF Global and New Jersey Governor, according to newsbuster.org. The site says the newspaper’s Saturday’s Business Day article entitled “Congressional Memo Sheds New Light on MF Global” by Azam Ahmed and Ben Protess showed some very interesting developments in the MF Global case involving Jon Corzine. The paper did not mention him as a Democrat in the article.
In that article, after the writers had described the situation and its new developments, he defended Corzine’s actions and said that “it appears to be no smoking gun”. This is interesting because the NY Times just defended a suspected criminal who transferred $200 billion worth of customer funds to JP Morgan to cover an overdraft charge.
This is absolutely ridiculous and an outrage. The NY Times has criticized Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other financial institutions accused of doing bad things over the years and yet here they are backing an individual who is suspected of committing fraud.
Here is the section of the article where the authors finish describing the new developments and proceed to defend Corzine and his actions:
“New details have emerged about MF Global’s chaotic final days and a critical transfer of customer money that has become a central focus in the wide-ranging federal investigation into the firm’s collapse.
In a memo prepared for a coming Congressional hearing, investigators described how Jon S. Corzine, the firm’s former chief executive and former New Jersey governor, asked an executive in the Chicago office to transfer $200 million to replenish an overdrawn account at JPMorgan Chase in London.
The Congressional memo cites an e-mail from the Chicago employee, Edith O’Brien, who authorized the transfer, saying it was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” referring to Mr. Corzine.
At first, the revelation fueled speculation that Mr. Corzine had instructed the transfer of customer funds, despite his assertions to the contrary. But it appears to be no smoking gun.
While the memo makes clear that Mr. Corzine was involved in patching the overdraft, it does not indicate that he requested the funds be drawn from customer accounts. He asked only that the overdraft be fixed. And in a footnote, the memo noted that futures brokerage firms like MF Global frequently deposit firm money into customer accounts and may withdraw it at will” (newsbusters.org).
At the end of the day, what you write about can reflect the organization that you work for and when you go around defending guys like Corzine for their actions, that looks bad. It looks bad for yourself and the NY Times. Unfortunately that makes them look hypocritical because of past articles criticizing similar circumstances but one thing for sure about the financial industry is nothing is certain.
