From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jesse Eisinger, a blistering account of corporate greed and impunity, and the reckless, often anemic response from the Department of Justice.
Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed “Too Big to Fail” to almost every large corporation in America to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond.
The Chickenshit Club an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs explains why. A character-driven narrative, the book tells the story from inside the Department of Justice. The complex and richly reported story spans the last decade and a half of prosecutorial fiascos, corporate lobbying, trial losses, and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives.
The book begins in the 1970s, when the government pioneered the notion that top corporate executives, not just seedy crooks, could commit heinous crimes and go to prison. The book travels to trading desks on Wall Street, to corporate boardrooms and the offices of prosecutors and F.B.I agents. These revealing looks provide context for the evolution of the Justice Department’s approach to pursuing corporate criminals through the early aughts and into the Justice Department of today.
Exposing one of the most important scandals of our time, The Chickenshit Club provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring these alleged criminals to justice.
Published on: 2017-07-11
Released on: 2017-07-11
Original language: English
Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.00" w x 6.00" l,
Binding: Hardcover
400 pages
Review
“An absorbing financial history, a monumental work of journalism… a first-rate study of the federal bureaucracy. It’s also an expansive parable: of righteousness and compromise, overreach and underreach, excess, deceit, greed the whole American show.” - Bloomberg Businessweek
“Smart, deeply sourced, and full of insider tidbits about legal stars like Comey, judge Jed Rakoff, and former SEC chair Mary Jo White.” - Fortune
"A well-reported tale..." - The Financial Times
"That the Wall Street titans who blew up the financial system suffered little more than slight reductions in their bonuses only reinforced the perception that the “system” is 'rigged' with the consequences we know only too well. Many people simply want to live in a world that is fair. As Eisinger shows, this one isn’t." - James Kwak, The New York Times Book Review
"The Chickenshit Club is a fast moving, fly on the wall, disheartening look at the deterioration of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, written sympathetically, thoroughly, but mostly engagingly. It is a book of superheroes." - The San Francisco Review of Books
“Jesse Eisinger is a master journalist. Revelatory, maddening, and engrossing, the book draws on vivid characters and immersive narratives to chart the rise of the corruption and the inertia within the Justice Department." - Bryan Burrough, co-author of Barbarians at the Gate and author of Days of Rage
“Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eisinger does a masterful job of assembling this riveting dossier of the legal scholars, jurists, and elected officials who played a role in turning the U.S. into a nation in which white-collar criminals are celebrated for their cunning instead of incarcerated for their offenses.” - Booklist, Starred Review
“In a spare, elegant and unrelenting narrative, Jesse Eisinger's The Chickenshit Club tackles one of the biggest remaining mysteries about the 2008 financial crisis: Why the American justice system failed miserably in its responsibility to hold Wall Street accountable for its unforgivable behavior in exacerbating the near-meltdown of the global banking system. It's a surprising story of cowardice and greed that will get your blood boiling all over again.” - William D. Cohan, author of Why Wall Street Matters
"This magisterial work is vital reading for everyone concerned by the untrammeled influence of financial institutions and corporations on American society and the nation's political life. Its grim details form a picture of how a system to hold to account the titans of boardrooms has been rendered toothless. Eisinger writes with clarity and style, delivering a story that is by turns fascinating, disturbing, and dare I say it? hugely entertaining." - Zia Haider Rahman, author of In the Light of What We Know
“Jesse Eisinger takes us inside the world of federal prosecution with the same detail and doggedness as in his Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism. He carefully tracks the decline in capacity, will, and guts among prosecutors. If you want to see, hear, and understand why no senior executives did jail time after the financial crisis, read this book.” - Frank Partnoy, George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and Director of the Center on Corporate and Securities Law, University of San Diego
About the Author
Jesse Eisinger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior reporter at ProPublica. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post. Previously, he was the Wall Street Editor of Conde Nast Portfolio and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, covering markets and finance. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and their daughters.
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