Cuomo’s Rattner Paradox

[Policing Wall Street]

Many people were taken by surprise when Steve Rattner, President Barack Obama’s car Tsar resigned yesterday—we here at The Black Star News weren’t.

On April 21, 2009 The Black Star published my column under the heading “Why Hasn’t Cuomo Indicted Rattner?”

Please see http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/5591/2009-04-21.html.

We felt that things would catch up to Rattner. People familiar with the investigation have since informed us that our stories have been spot-on.

Rattner supporters have been spinning his resignation—that he left because his job is done, having guided both GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy. If anyone believes that, then I’m the Queen England.

Why would anyone leave such a high profile job like that in six months, unless they were being promoted to a higher profile job, or unless trouble was brewing elsewhere?

Steven Rattner is founder of Quadrangle Fund, friend of the Sulzbergers, publishers of The New York Times, and fundraiser for the Clintons.

Why has Rattner resigned after only six months on the job? He could have sought another major position and basked in the sun of his underling’s accomplishments.

Rattner’s firm paid a political insider, Hank Morris, via Morris’ firm Searle & Co., $1.1 million in fees to obtain an investment from the New York State Common Retirement Fund. 

In 2005 Quadrangle paid fees to Searle & Co., Morris’s fund, to obtain million dollar placements from the New York City retirement fund, and the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has indicted Hank Morris and David Logliscli for accepting payments from investment firms that sought to obtain access to New York State pension funds.

While it is unlikely that Cuomo would indict Rattner –after all, Cuomo needs every bit of the fund raising that he can obtain when he runs for governor next year—Cuomo could cast Rattner in a bad light. Cuomo could force the Quadrangle Fund to pay a settlement fee of $20 million as did the Carlyle Group, to cure their own similar transgressions.

We are all supposed to be equal before the law. Rattner did pay Hank Morris $1.1 million to obtain a New York State pension fund investment in the Quadrangle Fund. It seems un-American that some individuals can get indicted while others are spared for similar transgressions.