You present a chicken and egg problem, where is he going to get the evidence to cite if the SEC is covering it up for them. If they are burying cases then there is no evidence to be had. The fact that many of these firms have paid fines without admitting guilt is pretty telling. Not to mention the whole house of cards collapsed and it was still big bonuses to go around. It is evident that they play by a different set of rules and ignoring that due to lack of evidence (from an entity that can't be trusted to provide that evidence), Is just inviting more of the same abuses. The fact is all of these firms did bury losses a fact that is not in dispute, and in doing so they committed fraud for that they paid a fine and admitted no guilt and suffered no prosecution, that was the deal and they did break the law. As well the investigator that was poking around was let go and later awarded a large settlement for wrongful termination.
IIRC the particular example of this that was lauded around as Wall Street laughing at the common man wasn't exactly what the headlines made it out to be. The company had guaranteed those bonuses before the collapse. They were contractual obligations. Unless the company was in bankruptcy, I don't think there was anyway for them to escape paying them (and since they most likely technically count as payroll, even bankruptcy might not have been enough to avoid those payments). Putting these in the contracts was probably a bad idea, but once it's there, it's there. [Feel free to cite other examples, or refute what I've said. I'm not married to it. :)]
17 firms paid out bonuses, IIRC AIG was the only one that had that binding contract and for good reason, they where built to implode. I don't know if all of the firms had a similar structure, but the bonuses while Rome burned where by no means a one off case.
