M E M O R A N D U M
To: Reporters and Editors
Re: SEC document destruction
Da: Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is engaged in a discussion with the Securities and Exchange Commission over whether the agency for years destroyed investigative documents inappropriately or illegally. Prompted by an agency whistleblower, Grassley is communicating with the agency as new information and questions emerge. He received a response to his latest letter from the SEC’s enforcement director, Robert Khuzami. The response is available
here.
Grassley made the following comment on the response.
“The SEC’s argument seems to rely on its claim that nothing significant was destroyed. But, since the documents are gone, we’ll never know how important they might have been. How do you know whether you might have been helped by something you no longer have? Besides, ‘no harm, no foul,’ isn’t a legitimate excuse for failing to comply with legal obligations. Federal records are federal records and have to be preserved, regardless of whether they’re part of an ‘investigation’ or an ‘inquiry.’ ”
