A group of House Republicans is calling for a criminal probe of Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey governor and former CEO of MF Global, alleging that Corzine may have perjured himself when testifying before Congress in 2011 about the firm's collapse.
Eighteen House Republicans wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last week, arguing that new evidence revealed in a civil case against Corzine contradicts what he told Congress at the time. From Reuters:
Corzine maintained during several Congressional hearings that he did not know what happened to the money. But recorded conversations unearthed by MF Global's regulator showed otherwise, the members of the House of Representatives said.
"There is no way Mr. Corzine could have been "stunned" to learn of hundreds of millions of dollars of missing client funds," they said in the letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that was dated August 1.
The recordings came to light in a civil complaint filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission against Corzine and MF Global in June. MF Global declared bankruptcy in October 2011, after repurchasing $6.4 billion in European sovereign debt issued by some of the countries most troubled after the financial crisis. Shortly after the firm's collapse, an estimated $1.2 billion in customer money was discovered to have gone missing.
"It is outrageous and unacceptable to let this discrepancy go without a formal criminal investigation," wrote Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., in a statement. "Mr. Corzine has a duty to be honest with the customers from whom he stole money as well as the Members of Congress to whom he testified. Any refusal to move forward with an investigation would be a gross injustice.”
"Mr. Corzine stands by all of his congressional testimony," a spokesman for Corzine told Reuters.
Shares