When Matt Taibbi left First Look, and the rollout of the publication he was creating, The Racket, he took one hell of a story with him:
She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn't take it anymore.
"It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street," she says. "I thought, 'I can't sit by any longer.'"
......
Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.
Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank's mortgage operations.
Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she's kept her mouth shut since then. "My closest family and friends don't know what I've been living with," she says. "Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview."
This is a big story, it goes on to show how the DoJ clearly had no intention of prosecuting. (Big surprise)
This is a story that has had to develop over months, and it comes out a week after he leaves Omidyar's media operation?
If I were a publisher, I would move heaven and earth to make sure that it came out in my publication, and it appears that Taibbi was sidelined for 11 months and that the output that came from this period is now coming out on other platforms.
I think that it was doomed from the start. Matt Taibbi said that The Racket would, "publication focusing on financial and political corruption," while Omidyar described it as a , "Digital magazine with a satirical approach to American politics and culture."
I am also quite credulous of the concerns Paul Carr, who has long believed that The Racket was compromised from the beginning, because Omidyar did not want Taibbi going after his friends and business partners in finance.
The short tenure of Marcy Wheeler at Firstlook, which ended as Wheeler made revelations regarding how Omidyar (and CIA) supported organizations were hip deep in the coup in the Ukraine, ends further credence to Carr's concerns. (Though Wheeler maintains that there was no connection between her leaving and her reporting on the Ukraine).
What concerns me is what this means to The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald's current journalistic venue.
I do not believe that Greenwald could be bought off, but I do believe that he could be sidetracked for months, much as Taibbi was, if some of the rocks he is turning over reveal the actions of some of Pierre Omidyar's friends in the intelligence community.