Republicans call on Justice Dept. to launch perjury investigation of Corzine

A group of House Republicans has called for a criminal investigation into whether Jon Corzine, a former Democratic governor and senator from New Jersey, lied before Congress in 2011.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday, the 18 lawmakers said that new evidence revealed in a civil case against Corzine contradicts his congressional testimony and may indicate he committed perjury.

“It is outrageous and unacceptable to let this discrepancy go without a formal criminal investigation,” Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.), the lead signatory of the letter, said in a statement. “Mr. Corzine has a duty to be honest with the customers from whom he stole money as well as the Members of Congress to whom he testified. Any refusal to move forward with an investigation would be a gross injustice.” 

Corzine was the head of the financial firm MF Global when it collapsed in October, 2011 in one of the biggest bankruptcies in U.S. history. As much as $1.6 billion in customer funds that should have been segregated and protected went missing. 

In congressional testimony, Corzine insisted that he did not know what happened to the money. 

But the House Republicans claimed that statements by Corzine uncovered in a civil complaint show otherwise.

“There is no way Mr. Corzine could have been ‘stunned’ to learn of hundreds of millions of dollars of missing client funds,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed civil charges against Corzine in June, asserting that he was responsible for the firm’s insufficient controls and failed to properly supervise actions the firm took. The result was a failure to prevent “unlawful uses of customer money,” according to the regulators.