Don’t miss this Wall Street Journal ($) editorial today, which addresses the same issue that many of these earlier posts address in regard to the Lord of Regulation‘s ongoing public flogging of American International Group, Inc. and its former chairman and CEO, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg:

[Y]ou don’t have to belong to the ACLU to wonder about the lack of due process here. Mr. Spitzer uncovers questionable accounting about an insurance transaction and demands that the board fire the CEO. He then uses that firing to justify a public accusation of “fraud” that he hasn’t yet proven to anybody, much less to a jury of Mr. Greenberg’s peers.
To which our reaction is, then why not get on with it and indict the man? If Mr. Greenberg’s behavior is so heinous that it warrants a denunciation as “fraud” on national TV, what is Mr. Spitzer waiting for?

As an aside, this post addressed the Lord’s unusual public statement from last week in which he stated that his public flogging of AIG would probably not result in a criminal prosecution of the company, although the same could not be said about Mr. Greenberg. AIG and Berkshire Hathaway board members and shareholders heaved a joint sigh of relief and gave thanks to the Lord for his public statement.
Well, it turns out that the Lord may have had more than market stabilization as a motive for that public statement. The Lord is already running for Governor of New York, and it turns out that some of the Lord’s largest campaign contributors are partners in the law firm that is defending AIG in the Lord’s investigation of the company. Inasmuch as that firm has apparently been advising AIG to roll over for the Lord during the investigation, do you think the AIG board knew of the connections between the company’s law firm and the Lord before acting on that advice?