| After Ex-OCC Brooks Cashed Out Now At
Miner BitFury While Omarova Looms, Maybe
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- The
Source
SOUTH BRONX,
SDNY, Nov 4 – In the midst of
the Coronavirus pandemic and
after the insurrection,
then-Comptroller of the
Currency Brian Brooks on
January 13, 2021 gave another
quid pro quo gift, a bank
charter to Anchorage, even as
he quit with a week left in
the Administration. Inner City
Press asked, Where might he
land and get rewarded for all
this?
In March we
learned: Brooks "joined
blockchain credit startup
Spring Labs as its first
independent director, the
Marina Del Rey,
California-based fintech
bragged."
But it
didn't last long. Now in
November, this: "Former top
U.S. banking regulator Brian
Brooks has been named CEO of
bitcoin miner Bitfury, roughly
three months after abruptly
quitting as chief executive of
cryptocurrency exchange
Binance.US" Revolting
revolving door.
Brooks'
rushed “fake lender” rule took
effect in December and was
issued by the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency
(OCC). The rule protects
“rent-a-bank” schemes whereby
predatory lenders (the true
lender) launder their loans
through a few rogue banks (the
fake lender), which are exempt
from state interest rate caps.
The rule overrides 200 years’
worth of caselaw allowing
courts to see through usury
law evasions to the truth, and
replaces it with a pro-evasion
rule that looks only at the
fine print on the loan
agreement.
On May 11
in the Senate, the fake lender
rule was overruled under the
Congressional Review Act, by a
vote of 52 to 47, which ran
nearly to 7 pm.
See Fair Finance
Watch tweets here.
Inner City
Press has since then reported
on, and questioned, the
nominiation of Saule Omarova,
who has virtually no track
record on the Community
Reinvestment Act. Despite
other questions, the
Administration has doubled
down and formalized the
nomination. The word on the
Hill is it's time to find out
more about who Hsu is. Watch
this site.
Watch this site.
Meanwhile
Inner City Press' requests
under the Freedom of
Information Act into Brooks'
conflicts of interest in the
fintech and crypto-currency
world have yet to be fully
answered. Will Brooks be
taking "his" documents with
him?
Brooks
went whole hog with Anchorage,
the so-called first crypto
bank. It should be reversed -
but will it be? Anchorage was
represented by Dana Syracuse
through the revolving door
from the NYS Department of
Financial Services.
Fair Finance
Watch and others opposed and
requested extensions on
Figure, for which OCC has yet
to answer Inner City Press'
FOIA request, here
***
Your
support means a lot. As little as $5 a month
helps keep us going and grants you access to
exclusive bonus material on our Patreon
page. Click
here to become a patron.
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
SDNY Press Room 480, front cubicle
500 Pearl Street, NY NY 10007 USA
Mail: Box 20047, Dag
Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2019 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com for
|
,
