Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

There are various theories about why no parties were ever held culpable. The most provocative view is one proffered by Jesse Eisinger, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, who has contended that it was a conscious strategy: “During the past decade, the Justice Department suffered a series of corporate prosecutorial fiascos, which led to critical changes in how it approached white-collar crime. The department began to focus on reaching settlements rather than seeking prison sentences, which over time unintentionally deprived its ranks of the experience needed to win trials against the most formidable law firms.”