The Justice Department’s MF Global Scandal Dates to 1932

There's an old saying in journalism that there are no new stories, only new reporters. The revelation that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's old law firm used to represent the bankrupt brokerage firm MF Global Holdings is a great example.

Here's the lead paragraph from an article yesterday on the right-leaning news website Breitbart.com, which was following up on an op-ed in the Washington Times:

"Those wondering why the Department of Justice has refused to go after Jon Corzine for the vaporization of $1.6 billion in MF Global client funds need look no further than the documents uncovered by the Government Accountability Institute that reveal that the now-defunct MF Global was a client of Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s former law firm, Covington & Burling."

It's great fodder for the scandal mill. It's also not a surprise. Covington & Burling, a powerhouse Washington law firm that was founded in 1919 by former Representative James Harry Covington, in recent years has represented JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and UBS, to name a few. It would have been more surprising if the firm had never represented MF Global. Corzine, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention, is the former New Jersey governor who was MF's chief executive when it collapsed.

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