The JPMorgan Chase bank of "Jail Jamie" Dimon paid another fine for wrongdoing on Aug. 16, as investigations into Morgan's activities continued to spring up almost daily. The occasion of the new fine dramatically shows the need for a restored Glass-Steagall Act.

The bank agreed to pay $23 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of mishandling money of pension funds and other clients by investing it in notes from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which went bankrupt. The Lehman notes had been bought on behalf of participants in JPMorgan's securities lending program, led by the Operating Engineers Pension Trust of Pasadena, California, and had sought class action status.

Morgan Stanely, New York Manhattan.

As LPAC and EIR have told Congress, the lie constantly repeated by Obama, Tim Geithner, Barney Frank to stop Glass-Steagall — that "it was investment banks and shadow finance institutions that collapsed in 2008" — is shown a lie by this case. JPM Chase's poured its wealth management clients' money and its depositors money into loans and repo operations with Lehman, which it knew to be hyper-overleveraged 35-40:1 in securities trading, not to mention derivatives exposure. Glass-Steagall does not allow banks, such as JPMorgan Chase is allowed to claim to be, to support securities broker-dealers by those methods, essentially using Lehman as a front for its own securities/derivatives operations.

The Wall Street Journal's Aug. 18, "Regulatory Headaches Worsen for JPMorgan", does not even mention this fine or the $500 million FERC fine for electricity price gouging, or the metals price racketeering being investigated by the CFTC. It listing a dozen other cases of investigations Morgan has had to reveal, and reports the bank has just allocated nearly $700 million more to legal costs. Nor does it mention the very newest investigation, which involves the Chinese government starting to move against Morgan's buying of influence in China's political system.

The Journal makes clear most serious "new" charge is mortgage securities fraud, with multiple investigations both civil and criminal underway. "The bank said earlier this month that the Justice Department has reached a preliminary conclusion that civil securities laws were broken while J.P. Morgan sold mortgage-backed securities from 2005 to 2007," the paper writes. "The Justice Department also is conducting a criminal investigation into the matter."