1.
AMY GOODMAN: Federal
prosecutors have agreed to settle a criminal probe into General Motors for
concealing an ignition switch defect linked to at least 124 deaths. Under the
deal, General Motors agreed to pay $900 million as part of a deferred
prosecution agreement, but no GM executives will be prosecuted for covering up
the deadly defect. Last year, GM recalled 1.6 million cars containing the
faulty ignition switches that could cause their engines to stall, while cutting
power to brakes, airbags and steering systems. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Preet
Bharara announced the GM settlement.
2.
PREET BHARARA: We are here this
afternoon to announce the filing of criminal charges against General Motors
Company related to the company’s failure to disclose a safety defect from its
regulator and from certain purchasers of its pre-owned cars. At the same time,
this office and GM have entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to
resolve those charges. As part of the agreement, GM has agreed to pay a $900
million penalty or forfeiture. GM has agreed to the appointment of an
independent federal monitor for a period of three years. And GM has made
critical factual admissions. The statement of fact details how GM designed an
ignition switch for the Cobalt and other compact cars with such low torque that
it could slip out of the run position into accessory or off while the car was
driving. Cutting power to the engine also cut off power to the front airbags.
So if the key slipped out of the run position during a crash, the driver and
front passenger could lose the protection of those airbags.
3.
AMY GOODMAN: The Justice Department’s
deal with GM has been widely criticized by consumer advocates and families who
lost loved ones. Clarence
Ditlow, head of the Center for Auto Safety, said, quote, “GM killed over 100 people by knowingly putting a defective
ignition switch into over 1 million vehicles. ... Today, thanks to its
lobbyists, GM officials walk off scot-free while its customers are six feet
under.” The $900 million GM settlement is 25 percent less than the
record $1.2 billion Toyota agreed to pay last year for concealing safety
defects. To talk more about GM, we’re joined by three guests. Ralph Nader is
with us, the longtime consumer advocate, former presidential candidate. Fifty
years ago, he published the groundbreaking book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers
of the American Automobile. Rena Steinzor is also with us, professor at the University of
Maryland School of Law and immediate past president of the Center for
Progressive Reform. Her latest book is called Why Not Jail?: Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate
Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. And Laura Christian joins us. She is the mother
of Amber Rose, who
died after her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt crashed and the air bag failed to deploy
on July 29th, 2005. Amber was 16 years old. Since then, Laura Christian has become an
auto-safety advocate. She runs the Facebook page, GM Recall Survivors. Let us
begin with you, Laura
Christian. Can you go back to that day—I hate to make you do this—but
the day of your daughter Amber
Rose’s death, and talk about what happened? Where was she?
4.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Certainly. Well, she was at a party, and she was on her way out and hit
an incline. Her car went airborne, struck multiple trees, and she was pinned
down by the dashboard itself. And, unfortunately, she didn’t make it. I got the
call early that morning. I can still—I can still imagine it. It’s like I’m
still there some days, standing by that glass door and hearing that and just
screaming, “No!”
5.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what you
understood at the time happened?
6.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, shortly after, actually, at her funeral, EMTs approached
us and told us that the airbags did not deploy and should have deployed. An
investigator was hired shortly after, which told us that the car was actually
in the accessory position, which we now know shut down the power brakes, power
steering and also caused the airbags to never deploy.
7.
AMY GOODMAN: Do
you think that it is the ignition defect that caused Amber’s death?
8.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Oh,
absolutely. That’s been confirmed by our investigator. It’s been confirmed by
NHTSA and, later on, finally, by GM.
9.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your response to GM
settlement, the $900 million settlement?
10.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: First of all, I’d love to know how they came up with that
number. It’s absolutely ludicrous that GM is able to write a check
to get away with what is tantamount to murder, in my opinion. You know, the
fact that there are going to be absolutely no individual prosecutions, I mean,
that means that all of our loved ones that died, they will have died in vain. I
can’t comprehend this.
11.
AMY GOODMAN: Has the U.S. attorney spoken
with you? Will your family be compensated? And how do you feel about that
compensation?
12.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, GM—we did settle
with GM, but this is not about the money. You know, speaking with—I did speak
with the Department of Justice previously. They let me know that they were
finding it very difficult to find ways to prosecute individuals. Now, I’m not a
legal scholar; I can’t really voice opinion to this. But, you know, having
worked in law enforcement before, I know that there are ways. This is not the
first time a corporation has done acts of evil-doing, you know, and others have
been prosecuted for it. You know, why not this time? I really want the answer
to that question.
13.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, General Motors CEO Mary
Barra held a
15-minute news conference in which she discussed GM’s agreement to pay $900 million to end a U.S.
criminal ignition switch probe.
14.
MARY BARRA: We let those
customers down in that situation. We didn’t do our job. And as part of our
apology to the victims, we promise to take responsibility for our actions. So
we accept the penalties being announced today, because that’s what it means to
be held accountable. But apologies and accountability won’t count for much if
we don’t change our behavior. But we can be proud that we have.
15.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s General
Motors’ CEO. And I want to turn to Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader, your response to
this settlement?
16.
RALPH NADER: Well, it’s a absurd
settlement. It doesn’t deter future behavior by General Motors. Nobody went to
jail, nobody is indicted. The company wasn’t indicted. The
Justice Department under Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Obama
administration have created a new doctrine. It’s called “crimes without
criminals.” They charge GM with a crime, but the company was not indicted, and
no officials were indicted. Imagine individuals being able to get away
from that. That’s a double standard between the privileges and immunities that
are dedicated to corporations by the U.S. government and the way individuals
are treated. It went so far, Amy, that there are motorists who were charged with
vehicular manslaughter because they were involved in crashes due to GM’s
defect. As the Corporate Crime Reporter pointed out, GM did the crime, the
drivers do the time. And so I think the focus has got to be on Congress.
The pending highway bill has to include criminal penalties for auto companies
for violating safety standards for cars and parts, if they do so willfully,
knowingly, so, as Rena Steinzor has said, they can be prosecuted and sent to
jail.
17.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about—the Times
piece today points out that the U.S. attorney, Preet Bharara, cited an internal
investigation conducted for GM as favorable in determining the penalties paid
by the automaker. The two law firms hired for that inquiry, King & Spalding and
Jenner & Block, had
previously done legal work for GM, and court papers show Anton Valukas, the chair of
Jenner & Block, who headed the GM investigation, helped represent
the automaker in its talks with the Justice Department. Your response?
18.
RALPH NADER: Well, as professor of law
Rhode from Stanford said, this is a strange situation, where GM takes on an
independent reviewer, Mr. Valukas, he puts out a report—it’s quite condemnatory
of GM’s corporate culture over the years—and then he gets hired as the defense
counsel against the Justice Department. That does not pass the smell test. There’s
a lot involved here, Amy. The U.S. taxpayer bailed out
GM $50 billion after they collapsed in 2009 or so, and the government, in
return for the bailout, became a 60 percent-plus shareholder. So the U.S.
government owned, in effect, GM. And what did they do for five years under the
Obama administration when they owned GM? They did not restructure GM, requiring
compliance officers, requiring independent ombudsmen so conscientious engineers
in GM could go and tell the ombudsmen about defects in cars without losing
their job. They didn’t do anything—except bail out General Motors. And
so, they lost a great opportunity to also investigate this ignition switch. I
mean, it was not a secret. GM has covered up this ignition switch problem,
which killed at least over 124 people, since 2002. I mean, you have the classic
conditions for criminal behavior. You have a known defect by people inside GM.
You have deaths and injuries increasing. You have a cover-up. You don’t tell
the U.S. government, the auto safety agency, in five days what you’re supposed
to tell them—that’s another violation of the law. It was a cop-out by the U.S.
attorney for the Southern District of New York, under orders from the Justice
Department and probably the White House. It was a cop-out. It’s easy to
go after people for insider trading, as this U.S. attorney does, but when it
comes to really going down and enforcing the law against corporate crime, he
backed down. And then he gives the excuse, says, “Well, you know, GM has
this complex internal structure. We couldn’t find out who was accountable.”
Nonsense. As Professor Steinzor has pointed out, they’ve done exactly this in
other cases, but it was small fry. They went after some food company that
contaminated people with deaths, and now they want to sentence the head
executive of this small company to jail. But no, GM, bailed out by the U.S.,
subjected to all kinds of stagnant technology for 50 years, suppressing known
safety defects, losing market share to foreign importers, and lobbying on
Capitol Hill for—against criminal penalties against fuel efficiency, while it
was being bailed out, and then stonewalling the same auto safety agency under
the same U.S. government that’s trying to enforce the auto safety laws.
19.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Preet
Bharara praised GM for its cooperation with authorities.
20.
PREET BHARARA: From the moment
that top management came forward to disclose the defect in February of 2014,
the company’s cooperation and remediation have been fairly extraordinary. It
conducted a swift and robust internal investigation. That doesn’t always
happen, I can tell you. It gave the prosecutors in my office real-time updates
about the findings of that internal investigation, often revealing to the
office what witnesses had said even before GM management was filled in itself.
21.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the U.S. attorney, Preet Bharara. As The New York Times points out, prosecutors focused
their attention on a relatively short period of time, only 20 months from the
spring of 2012 to February 2014, when GM began recalling 2.6 million older cars
to fix the switch, but the complaints go back more than a decade, with a number
of people inside the company saying that they were being told that they shouldn’t
raise this issue, Ralph.
22.
RALPH NADER: That’s right. It’s a classic
cover-up over a period of more than a decade, as the Center for Auto Safety has
pointed out. But now, looking forward, what we have to
do is focus on Congressman Fred Upton, the chair of the committee in the House
handling the highway bill, as we speak, and Senator John Thune
from South Dakota, the chair in the Senate, and
push what Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator Ed Markey and others have been
saying: Put criminal penalties in that auto safety law, after some 50 years
of stonewalling and lobbying by GM. Otherwise, more people are going
to die, more people are going to be injured. We’ll have a two-tier legal system
maturing, and there will be a double standard against what people can’t do and
what corporations get away with. This is what has to be a major issue in the
presidential campaign, if they can ever get around to serious issues, has to be
a major issue—the corporate crime wave washing over the country, and homicidal
fugitives from justice, like General Motors, getting away with it again and
again, in spite of terrific media coverage again and again by The Washington
Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. Didn’t make any
difference to the U.S. attorney or the attorney general—
23.
AMY GOODMAN: Who gets—
24.
RALPH NADER: —or the White House.
25.
AMY GOODMAN: Who gets the money?
26.
RALPH NADER: The government gets the $900
million, which is like a drop in the bucket for GM. By the way, that money
really is tax money recycled. GM, from the bailout, still has billions of
dollars of taxpayer money in its treasury. There are tort lawsuits being filed
and negotiations going on as we speak, at least 1,300 or so cases, next of kin
claiming compensation for their loved ones and injuries. That’s not fully
disclosed yet as to what’s happened, but it looks like it’s imminent. So, we
have the tort civil justice system coming at GM—they’ll all write it off, GM
will write it off—and the surrender by the Justice Department, on the other
hand.
27.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, the U.S. attorney does
say that individual prosecutions could take place. This isn’t over.
28.
RALPH NADER: Well, let’s put him on the
hot seat and see if he and other U.S. attorneys will do so. They often dangle
that when they know they’ve caved to corporate power. They dangle the prospect
of future prosecutions. But Professor Steinzor can explain that that’s largely
public relations.
29.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to come
back to this discussion. Our guests are Ralph Nader, longtime consumer
advocate, took on GM a long time ago, and has for 50 years. In fact, GM was
forced to settle with him when it came out that they were spying on him as he
was taking on the auto giant. Laura Christian also our guest, mother of Amber
Rose, who died in a car crash in 2005 as a result of the faulty ignition
switch. And we will be speaking with Rena Steinzor, who wrote Why Not Jail?: Industrial Catastrophes,
Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. This is Democracy
Now! Back in a moment. [break] We are talking about the $900 million
settlement that’s been reached between the U.S. Justice Department and GM over
the deaths of over 120 people, 124 people, for a faulty ignition switch that
they knew about for over a decade. Among our guests today, Laura Christian, mother of
Amber Rose—she was 16 years old when she died as a result of this faulty
ignition switch in the car, which crashed; Ralph Nader, who has long taken on
General Motors; and Rena
Steinzor, who wrote the book, Why Not Jail?: Industrial Catastrophes,
Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. Professor Steinzor,
can you respond to this settlement and what you think needs to happen? Do you
think the government sold out to General Motors?
30.
RENA STEINZOR: Yes, I think the
government sold out to General Motors, and what it did is part of a much larger
trend. The name of this kind of agreement is “deferred
prosecution agreement.” And what that means is
that companies can pay a hefty fine—that to them is just a cost of doing
business—and avoid any admission that they committed criminal acts. The
U.S. attorney has filed a statement of facts about what happened here, that in
and of itself is pretty shocking. There were efforts to cover up the ignition
switch defect going back as far as 2001. At one point, the GM engineer who was
in charge of the switch, Ray
DeGiorgio, secretly changed the part without telling anybody, and so
Cobalts from 2005 and Saturns from 2005 on were safe, but cars were left on the
road, hundreds of thousands of them, that still had the faulty switch, that GM
acknowledged was faulty by changing the part. GM spent years procrastinating.
They had various workforce—work groups, task forces, who sat around palavering
about what to do. They still dragged their feet when their outside counsel told
them they risked punitive damages in some of the tort cases. And finally, they
rushed to the Justice Department and said, “I’m sorry,” and were able to escape
without having to plead guilty. This happened most
notoriously in the case of HSBC, the huge worldwide bank, which was laundering
money for a Mexican drug cartel, and the Justice Department gave them the same
kind of settlement—deferred prosecution agreement—which is a favorite of the
Obama administration’s Justice Department and really denies justice to the
victims of the bad acts, that are covered in a statement but never brought to
court.
31.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Steinzor, Ralph
Nader mentioned that drivers were prosecuted—
32.
RENA STEINZOR: Yes.
33.
AMY GOODMAN: —even though General Motors
knew it was their fault, they had a faulty ignition switch. Can you tell us
some of the stories of those drivers?
34.
RENA STEINZOR: Yes. The one that is most vivid in my mind is the case of Candice
Anderson, who was driving a Saturn, and she
ran the car into a tree after she lost control of it. It’s really important to
try and focus on how upsetting it is to have a car stall out as you’re driving
it. You lose the steering, the brakes. The airbags, you find, once—you find out
aren’t working once you crash, but by then you’ve already been through this
terrible experience. Unfortunately, her fiancé was killed in that crash, and she
was indicted for reckless homicide. Fortunately, they gave her probation, but
not until her parents had emptied their retirement account to pay for her
defense. And only years later did a judge vacate her plea, when GM admitted
that the switch was faulty. So, the double standard for white-collar
criminals and the average person is revealed in sharp relief by this very sad
case.
35.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s
turn to Samantha Denti of Toms River, New Jersey, describing what happened
when she drove a GM car with a faulty ignition switch.
36.
SAMANTHA DENTI: Driving this
car was like playing a game of Russian roulette with my safety and that of my
friends. I can’t
even begin to explain the fear and confusion that runs through you that moment
when you have no control over your car. I cannot comprehend the loss
that these families behind me are going through. My hope is that the horror
stops right now. I don’t want any more drivers to be mourned by family and
friends because an automaker hid a deadly problem. The federal government
failed to take action, and drivers like me were kept in the dark.
37.
AMY GOODMAN: So there you have Samantha Denti. Professor
Steinzor, continue with the point that she is making.
38.
RENA STEINZOR: Well, I also want to make
clear that the reason, supposed reason, for not being tough with GM, for
letting them walk, in addition to the fact that they apologized so nicely, is
that there is a gap in the law. And it’s certainly true that it would be much
better to have strong provisions that targeted hiding defects, very
specifically. But what GM is guilty—and the U.S. attorney did acknowledge
this—of, wire fraud: It sold these cars, pre-owned compacts, as safe, even
though it knew that there were ignition switch problems; it didn’t replace the
switches on the cars it sold itself; it certified that they were safe to the
people that bought them; and it advertised them in the media and pushed these
sales. And that is—multiple felonies could be charged on the basis of that, and
have been charged in other cases that involved deadly products, including
peanut butter that was contaminated by salmonella. The Justice Department went
to trial on that case, and the sentencing is next Monday. They got felony
convictions. The company was small—that’s one difference. There’s a compounding
pharmacy up in Massachusetts that sold steroid injections contaminated by
fungal meningitis, and 64 people died as a result. That company has been
charged with conspiracy and second-degree murder. So the Justice Department
knows perfectly well how, under existing law, to make tough cases. We need
stronger laws, but it is no excuse for what happened here, which is to turn
their back on the victims, basically, and not hold the company accountable.
There isn’t a victim who’s spoken out who is satisfied with this settlement.
39.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Laura Christian, are you not consulted
in any way, since this settlement money doesn’t go to you, it goes to the
government?
40.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, you know, it doesn’t
have anything to do with the money, in my opinion. None of the families that I’ve
spoke to, and I’ve spoken to quite a few, none of us care about the money. What
we care about is seeing real justice. And to us, the only thing that that’s
going to mean is someone actually going to jail—the one thing that we are
vehemently denied by the federal government. For what purpose, I don’t know. Is
GM just too big? I don’t understand.
41.
AMY GOODMAN: You
met with Mary Barra, is that right?
42.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: That’s
correct.
43.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about this meeting, the
CEO of General Motors.
44.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: I
found her to be extraordinarily cold, actually. You have to picture the room.
We’re in a very large conference room, 30 family members, Kleenex in front of
each and every single one of us, Mary Barra at the head surrounded by her two
attorneys. And each family member told their story. There was not a dry eye in that room—with the exception of
Mary Barra and her two attorneys. She said the same thing over and over
again: “I’m so sorry for your loss.” When I asked her—when I asked her about
what they were doing, and would they be willing to park those vehicles, she
would not answer me, saying that this was under investigation.
45.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask about pending
legislation to improve auto safety. This is Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of
Connecticut, followed by Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who you’ve worked
with, Laura Christian.
46.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL:
Senator Markey and I are here today to urge you, General Motors, to address the
unconscionable acts of your company in failing to disclose serious defects in
many of your cars. Innocent lives were lost.
47.
SEN. ED MARKEY: There are
Americans, right now, driving defective cars down highways at great speeds,
whose lives are at risk. And they are unaware of the risk they are taking.
Senator Blumenthal and I have introduced legislation that will improve vehicle
safety and increase reporting and transparency, so that the public knows sooner
about possible deadly defects.
48.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ralph Nader,
how would that work?
49.
RALPH NADER: Well, it would basically say
that any company that knowingly and willfully violates government safety
standards, resulting in death and injury, can be criminally prosecuted, and, as
well, the officials inside the company. So it’s prosecution of the company,
prosecution of officials. Senator John Thune from Nebraska, Congressman Fred Upton from
Michigan have been blocking Senator Blumenthal and Senator Markey’s efforts.
They deserve to be contacted by people all over the country. If we had
criminal penalties when we were pressing for them in 1966, and the GM
lobbyists, led by Lloyd Cutler, the corporate lawyer, blocked that, you wouldn’t
see this situation today. How many times do corporate executives privately have
to tell people the only deterrence is their fear of jail? That’s what it is. And
what we have now is corporations who got chartered many, many decades ago to
limit the liability of shareholders, now have limited the liability of the
corporation itself. And the mockery is that General Motors and Mary Barra, the
CEO, are using shareholder money and taxpayer money to pay this flimsy $900
million settlement fine, and they’re off scot-free. I mean, listeners have got
to be very indignant about the way corporate criminals get off. They get very
indignant when individual criminals, street criminals, don’t get severe
penalties, but they don’t get as angry about corporate criminals. And the toll
of death, injury and disease that is traced to corporations, like
hospital-induced infections, medical malpractice, air pollution, unsafe
products, occupational disease, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of deaths,
plus more injuries and disease, every year, that are preventable. But the law
doesn’t exist.
50.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, don’t the studies show
that when corporate individuals are held accountable, when there is a threat of
jail, the crime wave goes down?
51.
RALPH NADER: Of course, and—but the
problem is, we haven’t had much experience with what you just described, Amy.
The Wall Street crash, nobody responsible for it, in JPMorgan, Citigroup,
Merrill Lynch, AIG, they weren’t prosecuted. It’s too bad Eliot Spitzer was no
longer attorney general. He would have done it. But they weren’t prosecuted.
They caught a few large traders insider trading. That doesn’t affect the crash
of Wall Street, unemploying 8 million people, shredding pensions, mutual funds.
Then they have the gall, after they jump ship and tank their own companies and
Wall Street, to go to Washington, where the former head of Goldman Sachs was
the secretary of treasury, Secretary Paulson, and demand and get a bailout.
Citigroup got a huge multibillion-dollar bailout on a weekend, secretly talking
with the officials in Washington. This country is being corporatized into the
ground. Its democracy is being driven into the ground, the rights of people.
That’s why we’re very heartened by Laura Christian and the victims and the
families of the victims, because they’re not going to go away. And victims and
families of product defects all over the country should organize, network and
go after their members of Congress. You know—
52.
AMY GOODMAN: Just to under—
53.
RALPH NADER: Politicians can stare us
down when we testify, Amy. They can’t stare people like Laura Christian down.
54.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me go back to some of
the reports from the last years. This is Reuters 2014. “A former head of General Motors corporate quality audit
warned the company’s board in a letter in 2002”—that’s what? Thirteen years
ago— “that it needed to ‘stop the continued shipment of unsafe vehicles’ and ‘recall
suspect vehicles that were already in customers’ hands.’“ This is years before
Amber died, Laura’s daughter. “The letter from William McAleer shows that GM’s
directors and top management were told about serious safety defects in vehicles
that were coming off the company’s production lines more than 11 years before
GM recalled millions of vehicles for faulty ignition switches linked to,” at
that time, “at least 13 deaths.” Last year, Businessweek wrote about Courtland
Kelley, a third-generation, 30-year GM employee, who who was the former
head of a nationwide GM inspection program. He was forced to sue GM in 2003, 12
years ago, after the company repeatedly ignored his reports of flaws. And Businessweek also
reported on how GM’s outside lawyer,
Peter Kellett, pressed Courtland Kelley “to
admit that raising concerns about trucks wasn’t part of his job description, as
an inspector of cars.” Kelley said, “My job assignment as a GM employee is to
make sure that our customers are safe in anyway I can. That’s my understanding,”
Kelly said. GM said, “But was it your specific understanding that you were
charged with responsibility for monitoring information relating to vehicles
other than the [small cars]?” Those were quotes from a deposition. When
you listen to this, Laura Christian, your feelings?
55.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Absolute disgust. You
know, once again, GM puts profit above safety, as they always have. You know,
this is nothing new. This is truly nothing new. And, you know, there’s one thing
I do want to point out, is that so many people out there think that this is not
something that’s going to happen to them, so they don’t get active, they don’t
take part in, they don’t write their senators, they don’t write their
representatives. Well, I can tell you firsthand, I was one of those people that
thought that this was never going to happen to me, you know, the likes of GM
would never affect my life directly. And, you know, I can tell you that it has.
The fact that such—such corruption exists is not entirely shocking. The
fact that we allow it to continue to exist, that we don’t prosecute when these
opportunities rear itself in the glaring light of day, you know, that—
56.
AMY GOODMAN: Who do you think should be
prosecuted?
57.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, certainly, Ray DeGiorgio. He’s
number one on, I think, everybody’s list.
58.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain, because—for
those who aren’t familiar and steeped in this as much as you are.
59.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Oh, certainly. Ray DeGiorgio is the
engineer that was in charge of this particular ignition switch. He was the one
that knew that there was not enough pressure or torque in these vehicles,
meaning that it was going to be able to go from the on position to the
accessory position. He knew this. He gave the order at Delphi to go ahead and
manufacture this particular part, even though it did not meet GM’s own
specifications. He later on, you know, had the model changed itself, had the
switch redesigned, but did not change the actual part number. That’s concealing
it, not only to all consumers everywhere, not only to the federal government,
but to some at GM, as well. I understand it made it a little bit more difficult
to figure out what was going on. Though, nevertheless, it did come to light.
Counsel in GM knew. Counsel, you know, basically, in some cases, strong-armed
certain victims’ parents, family members, to accept minimal amounts of money,
to—in some cases, bullied them against suing GM at all. And these are their own
counsel.
60.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Steinzor, why wasn’t—why
aren’t these people prosecuted, when you have specific people that are known?
And I know this can go right up to the top, obviously. We’re talking about many
years now.
61.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, that’s a
really good question. You know, actually, certainly, she’s—you’re going to be
able to answer that a little bit more than I. Do you want to go ahead and take
that one?
62.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor
Steinzor?
63.
RENA STEINZOR: I think it is a lack of
will on the part of the prosecutors. They just don’t have the stomach to bring
the cases, for reasons that I can’t understand. And it’s worth taking one step
back. Laura is talking about all the consumers who have trouble with their
cars. Remember the Toyota sudden exhilaration. Now we’re
in the middle of a massive recall involving Takata airbags. We have the GM
ignition switch. Last year, 64 million vehicles were recalled. Some of them
were for non-safety defects, but a vast majority were for safety defects. So
we clearly have a problem throughout the auto industry, and yet we have not
seen individual prosecutions. And Toyota got another one of these “I don’t have
to admit I’m wrong” settlements—a deferred prosecution agreement. It paid more
money because it wasn’t as contrite with the Justice Department itself as GM
was. But as Laura has said so eloquently, the money, which is really not a big
deal to these companies—it’s a cost of doing business—does not have the same
deterrent effect in the future to save other consumers.
64.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, last week—I mean, the
Justice Department understands this full well. Last week, the Justice
Department unveiled new guidelines intended to increase the prosecution—
65.
RENA STEINZOR: Right.
66.
AMY GOODMAN: —of executives involved in
white-collar crime. Deputy
Attorney General Sally Yates said, quote, “Corporations can only
commit crimes through flesh-and-blood people. It’s only fair that the people
who are responsible for committing those crimes be held accountable. The public
needs to have confidence that there is one system of justice and it applies
equally regardless of whether that crime occurs on a street corner or in a
boardroom.” Again, that’s Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. That’s not Ralph
Nader saying that. But, Ralph Nader, your response?
67.
RALPH NADER: Yeah, words, words, words.
We want to see the deeds. In addition to the lack of
will by these federal prosecutors that Professor Steinzor pointed out, there’s
anticipatory greed. Hardly a month goes by when The New York Times or Wall
Street Journal doesn’t report that a top federal prosecutor leaves the job
and triples or quadruples his or her salary by going into the very corporate
law firms that were defending these corporations, so there’s this
merry-go-round that goes on. Now, if you’re a federal prosecutor and you know if you’re
too tough, you’re not going to get that half-a-million- or
million-dollar-a-year job, there’s an inhibitory factor. And it affects the Securities and Exchange Commission, it
affects the Justice Department. So people can just google and see just a
few days ago another top prosecutor in New York left to join a firm.
68.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader—
69.
RALPH NADER: The
other thing—the other thing is—last quick point—when was the last time any
reporter asked any of these presidential candidates, in the last 50 years, “What
is your position on corporate crime enforcement? What is your position on
corporate crime abuses and violence, of taxpayers, of contracts, of people’s
lives and injuries and their health and safety?” That’s the big taboo, Amy,
that’s going on here.
70.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ralph, I
want to—
71.
RALPH NADER: We’re not
just—yeah.
72.
AMY GOODMAN: —ask you to stay on for the
next segment to comment on the 2015-’16 presidential campaign, but I want to
get Laura Christian’s last comment on what you’re doing on Facebook right now
as you organize.
73.
LAURA CHRISTIAN: Well, I’m continuing to
reach out to speak to the family members and other people that have been
affected by these recalls, but also to give information, what recalls are out
there. And also, people have questions—you know, “My car’s been recalled, the
parts are not in”; you know, “GM or the other auto manufacturers that are out
there will not give me a loaner. What do I do?” I try to help people
individually, and I try to give advice, as well as comfort, to people that are
going through the same thing.
74.
AMY GOODMAN: The Facebook page, GM Recall Survivors. I
want to thank you both for being with us. Laura Christian, the mother of Amber Rose, who
died after her 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt crashed and the air bag failed to deploy
on July 29, 2005. Amber Rose was 16 years old. I also want to thank Professor Rena Steinzor, professor
at the University of Maryland School of Law, author of Why Not Jail?: Industrial
Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction. Ralph Nader will
stay with us to comment on the elections this year. This is Democracy Now!
We’ll be back in a minute. [break] This is Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Our guest
is Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate, ran for president of the United
States a number of times. Ralph, I want to start by
asking you about the latest meeting yesterday, town hall meeting, Donald Trump
held in New Hampshire. During the Q&A, the first person to stand up
said President Obama is Muslim, not even American, and asked when the U.S.
could get rid of Muslims. This is what the person said. He’s called on by
Donald Trump, who responds.
75.
DONALD TRUMP: OK, this man. I
like this guy.
76.
TRUMP SUPPORTER: I’m from White
Plains. Amen, OK? We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We
know our current president is one.
77.
DONALD TRUMP: Right.
78.
TRUMP SUPPORTER: You know he’s
not even an American. Birth certificate, man.
79.
DONALD TRUMP: We need this
question; this is the first question.
80.
TRUMP SUPPORTER: But anyway, we
have training camps brewing where they want to kill us.
81.
DONALD TRUMP: Mm-hmm.
82.
TRUMP SUPPORTER: That’s my
question: When can we get rid of them?
83.
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to be
looking at a lot of different things. And, you know, a lot of people are saying
that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there.
We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.
84.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Donald Trump. And I
want to get to what he then said afterwards, what his—what his campaign said. They issued a statement to The Washington Post saying,
“The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama
is waging a war against Christians.” So he certainly didn’t back off his
response or what his supporter said in this Q&A. Your response to this,
Ralph? And then, overall, just talk about what we’ve witnessed this week with
the Republican debate. But respond to Trump first. What should he have said?
85.
RALPH NADER: Well, what would
he have said if the man said Jews instead of Muslims? What would he have said
if he said Christians instead of Muslims? So, obviously, Donald Trump is tone
deaf about the rights of Muslims in this country. We have—supposed to have
equal rights under the law. What kind of stereotype racism does he require in
his audience before he stands up against it? Donald Trump—
86.
AMY GOODMAN: Would
you call him a racist?
87.
RALPH NADER: Pardon?
88.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you call him
a racist?
89.
RALPH NADER: Well, we’ll let
him answer that question. He certainly is not rejecting racist comments that
are made, and that’s the first sign that he—
90.
AMY GOODMAN: What about his
call for 11 million immigrants to be deported from this country?
91.
RALPH NADER: Well, that is so
absurd. But, you see, he gets away with absurdity. He has an immunity that
would tank any other political candidate, because he’s so outrageous, and the
press thinks he’s outrageous, so they give him a pass. It’s really amazing. It’s
sort of like the way the media did with Ronald Reagan: They had such low
expectation levels of him that when he exceeded them, you know, it was a
surprise. But Donald Trump is fulfilling some important functions, Amy. He’s
disrupting the slick corporatism of the other candidates. He, for example, has
said, “Why do we, the big rich guys, why do we give money to politicians? Well,
because then they do whatever we want them to do.” That’s a great quote. And he
was asked, “Well, why did your companies go bankrupt four times?” He said, “Well,
that’s a competitive advantage. All the other companies do that.” So, you know,
he’s exposing the fraud of bankruptcy law when it comes to corporations,
compared to student loan defaults. And so he’s making these statements which
are very valuable. Who knows where it’s going to end up, but it’s all a circus.
He’s the chief circus barker, clearly. And all these issues that you talk about
on your program, and other serious programming, go by the wayside. I mean, we’ve
trivialized the campaign to select the leader of the so-called greatest power
in the world.
92.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, we
just have a minute. We talked to you right after Bernie Sanders announced his
candidacy for the president. Now he is ahead of Hillary Clinton in the polls in
New Hampshire and in a number of polls in Iowa. Your response to what this
means?
93.
RALPH NADER: Well, he’s tapping
in to what we all knew: There is a left-right coalition behind Main Street,
against Wall Street. They don’t like crony capitalism. They don’t like violation
of civil liberties. They want criminal justice reform, whether it’s left or
right. They’re very worried about empire abroad and all the waste in the
government, in the Pentagon and elsewhere. So he’s tapping into it. He now
needs to broaden out. He’s got to have a corporate
crime policy, not just a Wall Street—anti-Wall Street policy. And he’s got to
deal with military and foreign policy. Everybody that I know of in the
progressive world are waiting to see how he’s going to take on Hillary Clinton,
the master corporatist and the master militarist, the latest being the turmoil
in Libya, spilling over Africa. That was Hillary’s war, against the
recommendation of Secretary of Defense Gates.
94.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, I
want to thank you for being with us.
No comments:
Post a Comment