My reporting suggests that while many of their decisions may have had the appearances of crimes, it was less clear that the responsible executives had criminal intent. They were reckless, yes. They were greedy, yes. As unsatisfying as it might seem, however, those aren’t crimes. And there were parties who had sufficient incentive to find criminality: Prosecutors could have turned themselves into national heroes, and members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission as well as journalists would have all been eager to expose wrongdoing, myself included.
