Senator Elizabeth Warren Hasn’t Got A Clue

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D. Massachusetts) is frequently mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for President.  But it’s astonishing that Warren, formerly a tenured law professor at Penn and Harvard, is apparently unaware that the United States has a “government of laws not of men.”  On NPR this morning interviewer Steve Inskeep asked Warren about an audio tape that emerged about bank regulators who decided not to criminally prosecute giant investment bank, Goldman Sachs.  Inskeep repeatedly pointed out to Warren that the regulators had found that the bank’s actions, although “shady” (whatever that means) were not illegal.  Warren repeatedly brushed aside this distinction, as if it were insignificant.  She said that “the fact that Goldman could mount a legal defense here is not really the point….”  Really, Senator?  Not really the point?  In other words, Warren believes that criminal prosecutors should go after people who have broken no law, if the prosecutor has some personal moral or ethical objection to the defendant’s conduct.  Sorry, Senator Warren, that’s not the way the American  criminal justice system  works.  Prosecutors aren’t supposed to go on vendettas, based on their personal beliefs, against people who haven’t broken the law.   It’s shocking that ivy league law schools like Penn (my alma mater)  and Harvard would have hired a professor who fails to grasp such a fundamental principle of the American justice system.