U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch seems to be facing some major legal trouble while a Senate Judiciary Committee decides her fate of replacing Attorney General Eric Holder as the nation's top law enforcement official.
Lynch, one of the longest-serving attorney generals in American history and a top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, was nominated by President Barack Obama in November to head the Justice Department. But according to WND, the 55-year-old Harvard Law School graduate is now embroiled in a bombshell investigation that questions her role in the recent allegations of money laundering and tax evasion by international banking giant HSBC.
HSBC's Swiss-based private banking unit has been accused of helping tax cheats, blood diamond dealers, political figures from a number of countries and terrorist organizations hide their money from the authorities while aiding clients to conceal millions of undeclared assets.
And according to whistleblower John Cruz, a former HSBC vice president who is providing critical information about the financial institution's alleged laundering of funds, Lynch might have engaged in a Department of Justice cover-up by making a decision not to prosecute HSBC and certain of its top officials.
On Wednesday, the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee heard allegations by Cruz about Lynch allowing HSBC to enter into a "deferred prosecution" settlement where the bank agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine and admit "willful criminal conduct" in exchange for dropping criminal investigations and prosecutions of HSBC directors or employees.
"HSBC is a criminal organization," he stressed. "It is a culture of crime."
HSBC "served those close" to regimes including that of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian President Ben Ali and current Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said.
Other clients included former and current politicians from Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Senegal, among others, Western Journalism reported.
Cruz allegedly turned to WND with his charges of corruption and possible criminal activity at HSBC after authorities refused to act on the evidence he had presented.
One of those law enforcement authorities that Cruz claims wouldn't act on his detailed evidence of wrongdoing at HSBC could be Lynch, and that is exactly what investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee are currently inquiring.
