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During the August 18, 2018, airing of Breitbart News Saturday, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry explained that he chose, in part, to withhold $600 million from Citigroup and Bank of America because they are “trying to become the social police.” On August 16, 2018, Breitbart News reported Landry’s decision to withhold the $600 million, a decision shared by the Louisiana Bond Commission and State Treasurer John Schroder. The decision to withhold the money came after Citigroup and Bank of America each unilaterally placed gun control demands on their customers, going so far as to stipulate that bank-sponsored gun regulations had...

A U.S. senator on Thursday criticized Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp’s restrictions on lending to firearm makers and sellers, saying the new policies were wrongly politicizing banking services. Speaking during a hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Republican Senator John Kennedy said he planned to personally file complaints with the U.S. consumer watchdog regarding the firearm policies. “Our friends at Citigroup and Bank of America apparently aren’t busy enough with their banking business; they have decided that they are going to set policy for the second amendment,” the Louisiana lawmaker said, referring to the component of...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission tapped Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Adam Storch on Friday to serve as the agency's first-ever chief operating officer of the enforcement division. The new hire represents the latest personnel change at the SEC in its effort to improve its operations following its failure to detect Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme. Enforcement Division Director Robert Khuzami created Mr. Storch's position of managing executive as part of the major re-structuring effort he announced earlier this year. Mr. Storch will oversee division operations that include budget, information technology and administrative services. He will also supervise...

Global bank Citi is starting a new commercial firearms policy within the U.S. "to do our part as a company to prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands," the company said today. The new policy requires its new retail sector clients and partners to follow several practices: not sell guns to someone who didn't pass a background check; not sell bump stocks and high-capacity magazines; and not sell guns to people under 21 years old. Ed Skyler, Citi's head of global public affairs, said Citi has a few relationships with companies that manufacture guns, and for those relationships, "We...

Citigroup Inc. (C.N) added restrictions on firearms sales for new retail-sector clients, the Wall Street bank said on Thursday, the strongest move to date by a major U.S. lender following last month’s high school shooting in Florida. In an e-mailed statement, Citi said it will require those clients only sell firearms to customers who have passed a background check, restrict sales of firearms for people under 21 years of age, and not sell so-called “bump stocks” or high-capacity magazines. The bank’s new rules come weeks after a shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people, the second-deadliest shooting...

The lawlessness of the Obama administration has been astounding. Entire books have been written about President Obama’s notion that he should be and is free to do whatever he wants (such as Lawless by Professor David Bernstein, which I wrote about here). No doubt more will be. One remarkably brazen instance I recently learned about is his administration’s funneling of money from lawsuit settlements into the pockets of left-wing activist groups. It makes you wonder if there is anything this administration won’t try to get away with. Following the collapse of the housing bubble, the federal government initiated several grandstanding,...

Sen. Ted Cruz improperly accounted for Goldman Sachs loans he acquired during his 2012 Senate campaign, the Federal Election Commission ruled on Thursday. In a unanimous vote, FEC commissioners decided that the nearly $1.1 million in loans made to the to the campaign by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup should have been disclosed to voters and the American public. The final report from the FEC is expected in 30 days, and further action, such as penalty for Cruz, will be decided, should the FEC decide to initiate an “enforcement action” at a later date. But Cruz’s office said this is “old...

April 16, 2009 Raffles Hotel put on market as Prince Alwaleed attempts to stop wealth draining away Dominic Walsh A byword for colonial grandeur, and a favourite watering hole of such literary luminaries as Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, Raffles Hotel, home to the Singapore Sling cocktail, has been put up for sale for up to $450 million (£300 million). Apparently, the hotel's owner, Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia, is feeling the pinch. The Times understands that Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, in which the Prince's Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) has a controlling stake, is seeking buyers for its...

September 28, 2008 TO: Senator Obama FROM: Mike Froman Federico Pena John Podesta CC: Pete Rouse RE: Personnel Discussion We are scheduled to see you tomorrow in Reno to discuss White House organization/structure, as well as candidates for senior White House, national security and economic policy positions. Our focus tomorrow will be the White House Chief of Staff, the national security team (NSC, State, Defense, USUN, DNI/CIA, Homeland Security) and the core economic policy team (Treasury, NEC, OMB). At the meeting, we will provide you with a list of names which includes:  Candidates for top positions;  Deputies, as...

The avalanche dump of emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, keep coming from WikiLeaks, exposing the insider nature and corruption within the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party. Here’s an updated list. 1. Clinton Foundation donors expected “benefits in return for gifts.” ....an independent “governance review”...... many of the foundation’s donors had “an expectation of a quid pro quo benefits in return for gifts.” 2. Obama’s Cabinet picked by Citigroup executive — during the bailout — a month before the election. ...... executive at Citigroup during 2008’s election, listed potential Cabinet picks in an Obama administration,... The bank was...

If Republican nominee and real estate billionaire mogul Donald Trump pulls out an impossible victory against Hillary Clinton in November then prepare yourself for a global recession. This is the latest warning from Citigroup. The financial institution believes that markets would enter into chaos and the global economy would collapse because of policy uncertainty. Here is what Citi Chief Economist Willem Buiter opines (courtesy of Bloomberg): “A Trump victory in particular could prolong and perhaps exacerbate policy uncertainty and deliver a shock (though perhaps short-lived) to financial markets. Tightening financial conditions and further rises in uncertainty could trigger a significant...

Republican front-runner Donald Trump has broken just about every rule of conventional US presidential campaigning. Short on a long-term political vision to help shape the destiny of the nation, he has gleefully insulted Muslims, Mexicans, women and virtually all of his opponents. A Trump-in-the-White-House scenario poses high stakes for the Gulf region. Gulf Arabs could pull billion in investment money from the US if Trump, who triggered a global outrage when he advocated a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the US, wins the presidency later this year, prominent UAE businessman Khalaf al-Habtoor said. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,...

Oil prices surged on Thursday and Friday, staging a 14 percent rally to push oil back above $31 per barrel. A combination of factors worked together to stop the bleeding for WTI and Brent. Hopes rose for fresh monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank on Thursday when its President Mario Draghi hinted that more action could be forthcoming. Also, Japan’s central bank could also engage in QE-style asset purchasing to boost the economy. At the same time, a monster snow storm hitting the east coast of the U.S. brought speculation that colder weather could boost demand.

A Saudi royal is calling for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to end his campaign.“@RealDonaldTrump, you are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America,” Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal tweeted Friday. "Withdraw from the U.S. presidential race as you will never win.”Bin Talal’s request follows Trump’s controversial call for a ban on admitting Muslims into the U.S. Trump has repeatedly defended the measure as necessary to prevent radical Islamic terrorism on American soil.Forbes reported last June that Bin Talal is Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest billionaire, boasting a $24 billion personal fortune. He ranks No. 34 out of the world’s 100...

In an op-ed published in the Financial Times, John Reed says large banks like the one he used to run are now "inherently unstable and unworkable." The man who was one of the chief architects of the "Big Bank" model now says says the United States never should have repealed the Glass-Steagall banking act in 1999. That's exactly what Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley have been arguing on the campaign trail. They want the law reinstated. Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidates do not. As CEO of Citi from 1984 to 2000, Reed was one of the...

'A Saudi Arabian billionaire is planning on giving his entire $32billion (£20bn) fortune to charity. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the richest men in the world, said he wants to donate to groups that promote health and help with disaster relief. The 60-year-old will also support women's charities and those that look towards eradicating disease. He did not say whether the generous move would have any impact on his holdings. Mr bin Talal is the grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder Ibn Saud. He is said to have started his business empire with a $30,000 (£19,000) gift from his father...

For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote. But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup. The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed...

Few individual investors have quite as much capital to deploy as Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. Through his Kingdom Holding , he holds significant stakes in companies including Citigroup C -0.41%, Twitter TWTR +1.28% – and, until recently, News Corporation. The Prince hasn’t sold out completely – he still owns about 1% of the company, as well as a separate 6.6% shareholding in 21st Century Fox Inc which in itself is worth about $1.7 billion – but he previously also held 6.6% of News Corp NWSA 0%, or a total of 13.184 million class B shares. He’s shed...

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It's reasonable to recoil when DC gasbags compare Elizabeth Warren to Ted Cruz. But here's its less-obvious upside. In one of the more memorable Senate speeches in recent memory, Senator Elizabeth Warren threw down the gauntlet to Wall Street in words that you don’t often hear in that august body: she named names. Responding Citigroup’s complaints about financial reform, “let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi[group]. I agree with you Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces!” That’s unusual. The millionaires club also known as the Senate is an unlikely place to hear...