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Would you buy a used bank from Bob Menendez?

Add "Used Bank Salesman" to Senator Bob Menendez's resume. Last July our esteemed U.S. Senator (and head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) wrote to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on behalf of a small bank in Elizabeth, NJ. Menendez implored Bernanke to approve the sale of First BankAmericano to JJR Holdings of Brick, NJ or the bank would "fail within 3 days".

What Menendez failed to mention was his intimate connection to both First BankAmericano and JJR Holdings.

First BankAmericano Chairman Joseph Ginarte is a big Menendez donor. The bank's Vice Chairman is none other than State Senator and Democratic Party heavyweight Ray Lesniak (D-Union). And FirstAmericano's CEO Holly Bakke was the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance for former Governor Jim McGreevey. Lesniak was (and still is) McGreevey's principal political patron, and he's one of Menendez's key fundraisers.

Don't you just love the smell of incestuous political back-scratching?

If the Fed had approved the sale, Lesniak, Bakke, and Ginarte wouldn't have lost their shirts when FirstAmericano collapsed. But Ben Bernanke failed to act and the FDIC seized the bank, which wiped out any investment the three had made in it.

Fifteen million of our tax dollars later, JJR acquired the carcass of FirstAmericano at the FDIC's fire sale. So in effect Menendez got what he said he wanted. Except for the minor detail that his cronies were left out of the deal.

Posted at 10:52 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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