By Rob Kirby
First reported by Dawn Kopecki back in 2006 when she reported in BusinessWeek Online in a piece titled, Intelligence Czar Can Waive SEC Rules , “President George W. Bush has bestowed on his [then] intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.”
What this means folks, if institutions like J.P. Morgan are deemed to be integral to U.S. National Security – they could be “legally” excused from reporting their true financial condition.
The entry in the Federal Register Vol. 71, No. 92 Friday, May 12, 2006 scribed as follows:
The memo Bush signed on May 5, which was published seven days later in the Federal Register, had the unrevealing title “Assignment of Function Relating to Granting of Authority for Issuance of Certain Directives: Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence.” In the document, Bush addressed Negroponte, saying: “I hereby assign to you the function of the President under section 13(b)(3)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.”
A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that “with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States,” the*_ President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate “books, records, and accounts” and maintaining “a system of internal accounting controls
sufficient” to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with “generally accepted accounting principles.”
Question:Has it occurred to anyone that The Federal Reserve is by definition, a “private company” and NOT part of the government as its name would falsely lead one to believe? So, how can we believe ANYTHING the Fed publishes regarding the size of its balance sheet or anything else for that matter? We do know for a fact that the Fed resisted an audit. Could it be that this is what they did not want divulged???