The Department of Justice says that Boeing has violated a non-prosecution deal that they gave them years ago because the company has refused to make changes to help save lives. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The Department of Justice says that Boeing has violated a non-prosecution deal that they gave them years ago because the company had refused to make any changes to help save lives. I’ve got Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins with me now to talk about this. And honestly, I say this all the time, you are without a doubt, one of the best progressive commentators in this business. I watch your stuff all the time. It’s just, you nail it. And what’s interesting to me is you nailed this story before it ever developed. Tell, let’s talk about his story.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. So about five years ago is when Boeing started to see all of these problems with the 737 max. You had two massive disasters that led to more than almost 400 people dying and it’s because Boeing had changed out a small part in the plane in the operating system. But they didn’t tell anybody. They didn’t tell the regulators like they’re supposed to. They didn’t even tell the pilots of the planes that, hey, we’ve kind of changed the electronics inside. Best of luck. So the planes crash. The DOJ looks into it and they say, well, we don’t want to prosecute you. Give us two and a half billion dollars. We won’t prosecute you, but you gotta change things. And Boeing said, oh, of course we’re gonna change things. And then here, five years later, they didn’t do anything.
Mike Papantonio: They never do. I can’t tell you the number of times with pharmaceutical companies, with Wall Street, with polluters that I have seen the same thing play itself out. We’re not going to really throw anybody in jail. We’re just gonna fine you now. Best example is the washing money for terrorists, HSBC washed a hundred billion dollars worth of money. They got fined $1.6 billion, and then they got one of these non-prosecution agreements. They’re meaningless. All it is, is the government trying to protect themselves. In this situation, I promise you, you had doors flying off, entire door segments flying off. You had wheels flying off. You had, they couldn’t even figure out why there were engine fires. You had the door plug where somebody is sitting completely coming off the airplane. And everybody looks at it and says, well, gee, maybe this is just a bad run of luck. No, it’s not. Its Boeing trying to save money by having their subcontractors cut prices, cut costs, that type of thing. And they were under this agreement with the government, don’t do that anymore. We won’t throw anybody in jail. We won’t prosecute you criminally. It doesn’t mean anything when it comes from the Department of Justice.
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: They’re not gonna do anything to this company. I promise you they’re not. This is a company that makes missiles. You know, they’re in the war business. So they’re just gonna walk away from this and say, yeah, everything’s fine, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. The DOJ says, well, we’re gonna have a meeting the last day of May, and we’re gonna sit and talk about this and figure out what best to do now. The thing they’re gonna decide, like they always do, like they did originally is, we’ll fine ’em more money because we don’t want to go through the process of prosecuting them and years and years of this. Because if we lose, then we look bad. Oh, that could hurt my career when I leave the DOJ. I don’t want to prosecute a company I may have to represent in court five years from now. So we’ll fine you. We’re just gonna pretend none of this happened.
Mike Papantonio: But okay. You hit on something real important there. You hit on the fact that we have to look at who the lawyers are who make these decisions. Right? There are lawyers that are career lawyers, for one, they’re with the DOJ forever. They’re never gonna lose their job. So they don’t have to work. They don’t really have to reach out and work all that hard. And then you have the lawyers who are looking for the jobs when they get finished with the DOJ. So they’d like to be able to say, you know, we gave you a pass. Remember the pass we gave you three years ago? Don’t you need another lawyer? So this is disgusting to me.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. These lawyers will say, look, I don’t want to work for my hundred thousand dollar a year salary at the DOJ. Y’all are paying 10 times that for your lawyers. I’d love to be on that team. You know I’ve helped you out. You know what a good lawyer I can be. And that’s what happened. Whether it’s Boeing or pharmaceutical or a polluter, that’s what these guys are looking for, is the bigger payday.
Mike Papantonio: Farron Cousin’s prediction. What’s it gonna be? Are they gonna prosecute ’em?
Farron Cousins: Oh, hell no.
Mike Papantonio: No. I agree.
Farron Cousins: Ring of Fire founder and host of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio has a new book came out this week called, “Suspicious Activity.” Like his other books before it, this book actually deals with real legal cases that Mike Papantonio has handled, but in a fictionalized way. The book follows the character of Nick Deketomis that Papantonio first introduced in his book, “Law and Disorder,” and it carries on the story that began in “Law and Disorder” through “Law and Vengeance,” “Law and Addiction,” “Inhuman Trafficking,” and now “Suspicious Activity.” This book, in particular, deals with the financial institutions that have helped launder money for terrorist organizations, which of course is a topic we have covered extensively here on Ring of Fire. So if you’re a follower of Mike Papantonio’s books, or if this is your first one, you can get your copy of “Suspicious Activity” now. Just go to MikePapantonio.com and place your order. And if you haven’t already, check out Mike’s other books, also available on MikePapantonio.com.
