Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) criticized the Obama administration for failing to prosecute Wall Street wrongdoers.
Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said Thursday that SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White has failed on several levels to rein in financial leaders who skirt the rules.
{mosads}“They have failed to prosecute wrongdoers. Failed to put tough regulation in place. Failed to take up changes that they have the authority to make and that would restore more confidence in the fairness of operations on Wall Street,” Warren told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview.
“That really hurts,” she said.
The criticism by Warren of White is nothing new.
Warren has been an outspoken critic of the SEC chief and what she considers a lack of effort to ramp up enforcement and procure admissions of guilt from Wall Street violators.
Last summer, Warren wrote a letter to White calling her leadership of the SEC “extremely disappointing,” a move that brought on a strong backlash from the White House, Wall Street and Congress.
White, at the time, defended her record at the agency, touting the high level of enforcement cases and fines.
On the flip side, Warren praised the White House for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Dodd-Frank law.
“That little agency has now returned more than $11 billion directly to families who were cheated and handles nearly a million complaints and has begun to level the consumer credit markets so that families have a fighting chance to buy financial products without getting ripped off,” she said.
Still, despite all of her criticism, Warren said there is a role for bankers in a Democratic administration.
“There can be, so long as they have demonstrated independence and a willingness to act on behalf of the public,” she said.
“I want to see people who understand what’s not working in America and feel a real sense of urgency to make change. Right now this economy is working extraordinarily well for those at the top, but not much for anyone else,” she said.
Warren, a supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, said that anyone appointed to top posts in the next administration would need to be committed to making changes.
“And if they have Wall Street experience and that helps them do it better, that’s great,” she said. “But if their view of the world starts and stops in Lower Manhattan, that’s not going to work at all.”