New York’s Shameless Attorney General The list of Eric Schneiderman’s excesses has some new additions, but none tops his strange vendetta against Hank Greenberg. By Ken Langone
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-shameless-attorney-general-1448231721
If New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is at all chagrined to find himself the target of public criticism from nearly every direction, he shows little sign of it.
He has alarmed free-speech advocates by his intention to sue companies for speaking out on climate issues. He has earned the wrath of his fellow state attorneys general for torpedoing agreements they’ve carefully crafted. He is alienating the young and tech savvy by harassing digital innovators like Uber and Airbnb. He is even trying to outlaw fantasy-football prizes, which I doubt will endear him to many Jets and Giants fans.
There is no better example of his excesses, poor judgment and headlong pursuit of a political agenda than the vendetta he is still pursuing against Hank Greenberg, the former chief of insurance giant AIG. The case, now more than 10 years old, hinges on the accusation—made by Eliot Spitzer, Mr. Schneiderman’s disgraceful predecessor—that Mr. Greenberg in 2000 fraudulently arranged for AIG to purchase an obscure financial instrument called “finite reinsurance.”
The attorney general’s office has produced exactly zero firsthand witnesses to the supposed fraud. But there has been plenty of procedural delay, legal machinations, and so many alterations of the state’s complaint that the only two elements remaining weren’t even a part of the original filing.
When facing a regulator who puts personal ambition above principles, the process is the punishment. A 2011 profile about Mr. Schneiderman in Politico put a finer point on the AG’s ulterior aims—to build “an ideological infrastructure on the left.” Seen in that context, his tireless hostility toward a prominent businessman makes perfect sense.
In a 2013 op-ed in this newspaper, former New York Govs. Mario Cuomo and George Pataki implored the AG’s office to end its “futile pursuit of a dead-end case that should never have been brought.”
Yet Mr. Schneiderman persists, apparently unconcerned about squandering taxpayer money and his office’s resources. How many lawyers has the attorney general got on the case? How much time have they logged on it since he took office in January 2011? If the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped the case years ago, why does he persist? Since the case has been so whittled down in the judicial process that no actual damages are being sought, what can taxpayers hope to gain?
Members of the press should be asking Mr. Schneiderman these questions daily. Instead, they largely look away.
Perhaps New York’s attorney general hopes Mr. Greenberg is going to cave, or that he can smear the man’s reputation. That’s not likely. This month France awarded Mr. Greenberg the insignia of Commandeur in its Legion of Honour for his service during World War II.
At the ceremony, French Ambassador Gérard Araud recounted how Hank, a U.S. Army veteran and Bronze Star recipient, had “put his life on the line to liberate our country” and then in postwar years “was instrumental in advancing the insurance industry . . . among almost all of France’s largest public companies.”
Mr. Greenberg’s accomplishments here and abroad are undiminished by Mr. Schneiderman’s campaign. In an era when far too many so-called captains of industry roll over if the government pushes them, no matter how far-fetched the allegations, Hank Greenberg has remained a model of business leadership.
Mr. Langone is the chairman of New York-based Invemed Associates.
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