Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Deutsche
Bank AG (DBK) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which bundled and sold
billions of dollars of mortgage loans, now want to help
investors bet on people’s deaths.
Pension funds sitting on more than $23 trillion of assets
are buying insurance against the risk their members live longer
than expected. Banks are looking to earn fees from packaging
that risk into bonds and other securities to sell to investors.
The hard part: Finding buyers willing to take the other side of
bets that may take 20 years or more to play out.
“Banks are increasingly looking to offer derivative
solutions,” said Nardeep Sangha, 43, chief executive officer of
Abbey Life Assurance Co., a London-based Deutsche Bank unit that
helps pension funds manage the risk of retirees living longer
than expected. “Making the long maturity of the risks palatable
for investors, including sovereign wealth funds, private-equity
firms and specialist funds, is the challenge.”
As insurers reach the limit of how much pension-fund
liability they’re willing to shoulder, companies such as
JPMorgan and Prudential Plc (PRU) last year set up a trade group aimed
at establishing and standardizing a secondary market for so-
called longevity risks. They’re also developing indexes that
measure mortality rates and securities to let pension funds pay
fixed premiums to investors in return for coverage against major
deviations from projections.
Swiss Reinsurance Co., the second-biggest reinsurer, sold
the world’s first longevity bond in December in what it called a
“test case” to sell risk to the capital markets.
‘Run Dry’
Goldman Sachs, based in New York, and Deutsche Bank in
Frankfurt have set up insurance companies that promise to pay
pensions if retirees live beyond a certain age. They typically
receive a portion of the pension plan’s assets in return. The
banks, along with Morgan Stanley (MS), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and UBS
AG (UBSN), are looking for ways to offer this risk to investors.
“Ultimately, reinsurance capacity for longevity risks will
run dry, and that’s why it’s imperative that as the market grows
and develops it is able to bring in new types of risk-takers,”
Sangha said. “The obvious channel is the capital markets.”
Medical advances and healthier lifestyles have made
predicting life spans more difficult for pension funds. Life
expectancy in the U.K. is increasing by one to three months
every year, according to Dutch insurer Aegon NV. (AGN) Every year of
additional life expectancy typically adds as much as 4 percent
to future pension requirements, Aegon said in a report in March.
Photographer: Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Pension funds sitting on $17 trillion of assets are buying insurance against the risk... Read More
Aegon reported last week that first-quarter profit fell 12
percent as the company set aside money to cover the risk of
policyholders in the Netherlands living longer than expected.
Glaxo Transfer
Pension funds can hedge against life-expectancy risk by
transferring assets to an insurer or other counterparty that
promises to pay some or all of the future liabilities. Last
year, GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK), the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, became
the 10th FTSE 100 firm to buy insurance on about 900 million
pounds ($1.5 billion), or 15 percent, of its U.K. obligations.
That means Prudential, the U.K.’s largest insurer, rather
than the pension fund, will pay some GlaxoSmithKline pensioners
should they live longer than expected. Most longevity risk
transferred from pension funds is held by insurers.
Regulators are just beginning to focus on the new products.
“We’re seeing more and more sophisticated mechanisms being
offered,” said Bill Galvin, CEO of the U.K.’s Pensions
Regulator. “From a regulatory perspective, we are concerned to
ensure that trustees understand the extent to which longevity
risk has been passed from their scheme and the precise shape of
any residual risk.”
‘Early Days’
The Frankfurt-based European Insurance & Occupational
Pensions Authority isn’t reviewing longevity transfers, said
Sybille Reitz, a spokeswoman for the organization, because “the
market is still in its early days.”
The U.K. is the world’s biggest market for insuring pension
liabilities after a change in accounting rules in 2004 forced
companies to include pension plans on their balance sheets,
increasing the volatility of earnings. Since then, 30 billion
pounds of liabilities have been insured, about 3 percent of the
total outstanding, according to estimates by Hymans Robertson
LLP., a London-based pension consultant.
Banks and insurers completed a record 8.2 billion pounds in
longevity-risk transfers last year. Goldman Sachs-owned Rothesay
Life Ltd. sold the most pension-plan insurance in 2010, while
Deutsche Bank’s Abbey Life completed the biggest swaps deal.
Longevity Risks
With $17 trillion of the $23 trillion in pension-fund
assets worldwide exposed to longevity risks, according to
Zurich-based Swiss Re, investment banks see this as an
opportunity to create a new market for those willing to bet on
life-expectancy rates. If pensioners die sooner than expected,
investors profit. If they live longer, investors must compensate
the pension fund for the additional costs it faces.
Investors may be attracted to such bets because longevity
trends aren’t linked to movements in equities, bonds or
commodity markets, said David Blake, director of the pensions
institute at Cass Business School in London, who has worked with
JPMorgan on the derivatives.
The complexity and risk involved in longevity assets with
timelines of more than 20 years means banks are looking to
create bonds that offer 5 percent to 9 percent in annual
returns, according to Guy Coughlan, former head of longevity
structuring at JPMorgan. Returns as high as the “mid-teens”
are possible, he said.
‘Structural Problems’
Investors remain unconvinced. Not knowing whether a bet on
a group of pensioners’ life spans is correct for decades
prevents hedge funds such as London-based Leadenhall Capital
Partners LLP from entering the marketplace.
“There are big structural problems with the longevity
market,” said Luca Albertini, CEO of Leadenhall, which has $120
million under management and invests in insurance-linked
securities such as catastrophe bonds used to help cover
hurricanes and other extreme risks. With clients able to
withdraw investments only every month or quarter, “the only way
I can invest is if the market is truly liquid,” he said. “No
one has proven that to me yet.”
Subprime mortgages sold in the past decade were the genesis
of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression.
Investment banks passed the risk of borrowers defaulting to the
capital markets by packaging, or securitizing, the loans into
bonds and selling them to investors and one another.
‘Fully Collateralized’
Collateralized debt obligations were created and sold in
such volume that when mortgage holders defaulted, governments in
the U.S. and Europe had to bail out the financial system. Banks
are now looking to investors in much the same way to securitize
the risk of pensioners living longer than expected.
Securities based on life expectancy don’t hold the same
risks as those linked to subprime mortgages because they are
“fully collateralized,” minimizing the risk from a
counterparty failing to meet its obligations, Coughlan said.
Cass Business School’s Blake said it’s unfair to compare
the securitization of mortality expectations to the subprime-
mortgage market.
“Subprime was highly leveraged,” Blake said. “This is
different.”
Still, longevity transfers expose investors to the credit
risk of issuers for many years. Once a pension fund agrees to
transfer its assets in return for protection against pensioners
living longer than expected, they are tied into a long-term
contract that can be difficult to unwind, said David McCourt,
senior policy adviser at the U.K.’s National Association of
Pension Funds. That means the insurer, bank or hedge fund that a
pension plan chooses to deal with is important, he said.
‘No Going Back’
“There’s a massive counterparty risk,” McCourt said.
“People say insurance companies don’t go bust, but they do.
We’ve seen AIG and investment banks going under like Lehman.
There’s a lot of pressure on the trustees to make sure they’re
comfortable the deal is right because there’s no going back.”
Pension funds outside the U.K. also remain hesitant.
APG Algemene Pensioen Groep NV in Amsterdam, which manages
277 billion euros ($396 billion) of assets for seven pension
funds, “will not do transactions to actively hedge longevity
risk,” according to Harmen Geers, a spokesman for the firm.
“The market is unbalanced, since there are no natural
counterparties to take up a risk of that size in absolute
terms,” Geers said.
Life Settlements
There has been less interest in the U.S. because regulatory
pressure on pension funds hasn’t been as intense as in the U.K.,
said Pretty Sagoo, director of structuring at Deutsche Bank in
London. In the U.S., investors can bet instead on life
expectancy through so-called life settlements.
Rather than exchanging assets and liabilities with a
pension plan, the life-settlement market allows investors to buy
insurance policies from individuals and pay the premiums until
that person dies. Investors then receive the death benefits.
The secondary market for U.S. life settlements began in the
1980s when the AIDS epidemic led some patients to sell their
insurance policies to pay for treatment. The industry was valued
at $2 billion in 2001 and, once it became regulated, quickly
grew to a maturity value of $35 billion by 2009, according to
Conning & Co., a Hartford, Connecticut-based research firm.
Goldman Sachs-owned Rothesay Life, started in 2007, was the
biggest pension liability insurer in the U.K. last year after
insuring 1.3 billion pounds of liabilities from the British
Airways Plc pension plan. The largest swaps deal was completed
between Deutsche Bank’s Abbey Life unit and Bayerische Motoren
Werke AG’s U.K. pension plan.
Q-Forward Swaps
Rothesay Life CEO Addy Loudiadis was the architect of a
Goldman Sachs deal in 2001 that allowed Greece to mask its
indebtedness, according to London-based Risk magazine. Sophie Bullock, a spokeswoman for the firm in London, declined to
comment on Loudiadis’s involvement in Greece and said she was
unavailable to comment.
Goldman Sachs isn’t part of the new industry group, the
London-based Life & Longevity Markets Association, preferring to
develop the market alone, according to Tom Pearce, managing
director of Rothesay Life. Pearce said it won’t be easy trading
a security linked to life expectancy.
“Clearly, if there was a capital market solution that
would be helpful for the market generally, but there are some
challenges,” he said. “The biggest challenge is selling these
very long-term risks to shorter-dated investors.”
Mortality Indexes
Unlike Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, New York-based
JPMorgan doesn’t carry any of the risk of pensioners living
longer than expected. Instead, it arranges swaps, called q-
Forwards, which allow a pension fund to pay a fixed premium to a
counterparty based on its members living to a specified age. If
members live longer than expected, the counterparty reimburses
the fund; if they die sooner, the counterparty profits.
Credit Suisse and JPMorgan have developed indexes that
measure mortality rates and life expectancy for the U.S.,
Germany, the Netherlands, England and Wales. The indexes act as
a basis for pricing individual swaps and bonds, according to
Cass Business School’s Blake, who helped develop them with
JPMorgan in 2007. They will help buyers and sellers price
derivatives more accurately and give them confidence to trade
them, creating a liquid market, Blake said.
Swiss Re sold the world’s first longevity bond in December,
passing the risk from its own balance sheet to investors. The
$50 million bond, named Kortis, was a “test case,” said Alison
McKie, head of life and health products at the firm.
The bond pays investors a fixed sum from reinsurers for
taking the risk that people live longer than projected. If there
is a large divergence in mortality improvements between British
men aged 75 to 85 and U.S. males aged 55 to 65, investors risk
losing some or all of their money, Swiss Re said in December.
The bond is rated BB+ by Standard & Poor’s.
BNP, Munich Re
Previously, Paris-based BNP Paribas SA and the European
Investment Bank, the European Union’s financing institution in
Luxembourg, created a longevity bond in 2004. A year later they
withdrew the notes, which had a maturity of 25 years, after they
didn’t find a buyer.
Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, hasn’t
participated in longevity transfers “as the deals we’ve seen
haven’t met our profitability requirements,” said Joachim Wenning, the management board member responsible for life
reinsurance. “The future longevity trend is not easy to
predict. If your assumptions are wrong, the cost is high.”
Nevertheless, the Munich-based reinsurer recently became
the 12th member of the Life & Longevity Markets Association.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Oliver Suess in Munich at
osuess@bloomberg.net;
Carolyn Bandel in Zurich at
cbandel@bloomberg.net;
Kevin Crowley in London at
kcrowley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Frank Connelly at
fconnelly@bloomberg.net;
Edward Evans at
eevans3@bloomberg.net
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: February 17, 2014 The
probability of two vibrant young men in their 30s who are employed by
the same global bank but separated by an ocean dying within six days of
each other is remote. And few companies are in as good a position to
understand just how remote as is JPMorgan: since 2010, it has received
four patents on quantifying longevity risks and structuring wagers via
death derivatives.
The two deaths at JPMorgan remain unexplained. Gabriel Magee, a 39-year old technology Vice President was found dead on the 9th
level rooftop of JPMorgan’s European headquarters at 25 Bank Street in
the Canary Wharf section of London on January 28 of this year. A London
coroner’s inquest is scheduled for May 15 to determine the cause of
death. Six days later, Ryan Crane, a 37-year old Executive Director
involved in trading at JPMorgan’s New York office was found dead at his
Stamford, Connecticut home. Wall Street On Parade spoke with the Chief
Medical Examiner’s office in Connecticut and was told the cause of death
is “pending,” with final results expected in a few weeks.
Magee’s death was originally reported by London newspapers as a jump from the 33rd level rooftop of JPMorgan’s building with the strong implication that eyewitnesses had observed the jump.
The London Evening Standard tweeted: “Bankers watch JP Morgan IT exec
fall to his death from roof of London HQ,” which then linked to their
article which said in its opening sentence that “A man plunged to his
death from a Canary Wharf tower in front of thousands of horrified
commuters today.”
When Wall Street On Parade contacted the Metropolitan Police in
London a few days later, there was no assurance that even one eyewitness
was on record as having seen Magee jump from the building.
Crane’s death is equally problematic. The death occurred on February 3 but the first major media to report it was Bloomberg News on February 13, ten days after the fact, and making no mention of Magee’s unexplained death just six days prior.
According to information available at the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office, JPMorgan created the LifeMetrics Index in March 2007 as an
“international index designed to benchmark and trade longevity risk.”
The index was said to enable pension plans to hedge the risk of payments
to retirees and incorporated “historical and current statistics
on mortality rates and life expectancy, across genders, ages, and
nationalities.” From 2010 through 2013, JPMorgan has received patent
approval on four longevity related patents.
Reuters reported on August 26, 2013 that the long-term longevity bets
taken on by the big banks have now started to cause pain as
international capital rules known as Basel III require more capital to
be set aside for longer-dated positions. The article noted that
“JPMorgan likely has the biggest holdings of long-dated swaps because it
is the biggest swaps trader on Wall Street, responsible for about 30
percent of the market by some measures, traders at rival firms said.”
One extremely long longevity bet taken on by JPMorgan was reported by Insurance Risk
on October 1, 2008. According to the publication, JPMorgan entered into
a 40-year £500 million notional longevity swap with Canada Life whereby
Canada Life would make a fixed annual payment in return for a floating
liability-matching payment that would increase if the annuitants lived
longer than expected. JPMorgan was believed to have passed on some of
the risk to hedge fund investors but retained the counterparty risk.
Because many of these deals are private, the full extent of JPMorgan’s
exposure in this area is not known.
Wall Street veterans have also commented on the fact that JPMorgan
may actually stand to profit from the early deaths of the two young men
in their 30s. As we reported in March
of last year, when the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations released its report on JPMorgan’s high risk bets known as
the London Whale debacle, its Exhibit 81 showed that JPMorgan’s Chief
Investment Office was also overseeing Bank Owned Life Insurance (BOLI)
and Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLI) plans which allow the
corporation to reap huge tax benefits by taking out life insurance
policies on workers – even low wage workers – and naming the corporation
the beneficiary of the death benefit. Both the buildup in the policy
and the benefit at death are received tax free to the corporation.
According to the exhibit, the Chief Investment Office was tasked with
“Maximization of tax-advantaged investments of life insurance premiums”
for the BOLI/COLI plans. According to a report in the Wall Street
Journal in 2009, JPMorgan had $12 billion in BOLI, noting that a
JPMorgan spokesperson had confirmed the figure. Other insurance industry
experts put the total for both BOLI and COLI at JPMorgan significantly
higher.
In September of last year, Risk Magazine reported that the
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the International Organization
of Securities Commissions and the International Association of Insurance
Supervisors had published a report in August warning regulators that
longevity swaps may expose banks to longevity tail risk – meaning, for
example, that actual death rates in a given portfolio may vary
dramatically from a large population index.
One advisor is quoted as follows in the article: “You can see from
the position paper that this market has a lot of characteristics that
regulators don’t like in terms of banks getting involved in it. It’s
based on long-dated risks, upfront payments and a serious element of
hubris in assuming that the banks can model these risks better than the
people who originated them. It’s potentially a market big enough to
cause serious problems if it caught on and went wrong.”
That things are starting to go seriously wrong was evident in a
Bloomberg News report that emerged last Friday. AIG reported that it was
taking a $971 million impairment charge before taxes for 2013 on its
holdings of life settlement contracts because people were living longer
than expected. AIG is the company that was bailed out by the U.S.
taxpayer to the tune of $182 billion during the financial crisis because
of bets gone wrong.
Related Article: A Rash of Deaths and a Missing Reporter — With Ties to Wall Street Investigations
WallStreetOnParade.com
is a public interest web site operated by Russ and Pam Martens to help
the investing public better understand systemic corruption on Wall
Street. Ms. Martens is a former Wall Street veteran with a background in
journalism. Mr. Martens' career spanned four decades in printing and
publishing management.
www.healthimpactnews.com
Dr. Coleen Boyle of the CDC testifies under oath before Congress in
November 2012 that the body of evidence shows there is no connection
between mercury in vaccines and autism.
In a press release issued this week, one that so far no mainstream
media sources have bothered to report, it was announced that Dr. Brian
Hooker had finally received documents from the CDC through a Freedom of
Information Act that revealed the CDC had access to data linking
Thimerosal in vaccines to autism, non-organic sleep disorders, and
speech disorders.
Two members of Congress helped Dr. Hooker draft his letter to the
CDC, after having spent nearly 10 years submitting over 100 Freedom of
Information Acts to no avail.
Truth In Media: Vaccine Court and Autism: http://youtu.be/wfqpZqEP6gg via @youtube
This information, so far, has been completely blacked out of the mainstream media.
This information is very damaging to the CDC, which has stated for
years that there are no studies linking the mercury of Thimerosal in
vaccines to autism. You can watch for yourself in the link below the
most recent testimony given by the CDC in the November 2012
Congressional Hearing on Autism, where they claim there are no studies
linking Thimerosal to autism. Thimerosal is still used today in the flu
shot that is administered to pregnant women and infants.
Watch video highlights of this Congressional hearing on Autism here. Other than C-SPAN, it was mostly ignored in the mainstream media.
The mainstream media’s official position regarding vaccines and
autism has been that it has been “proven that there is no link”, and Dr.
Andrew Wakefield is used as the standard scapegoat being presented as a
“disgraced doctor” who supposedly got caught fabricating his study. Of
course, Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s study has been replicated in at least 28 other studies,
and no case has ever been won against Dr. Wakefield in a court of law.
Litigation is still pending, and one of the doctors who was a co-author
in the study has been completely exonerated in the U.K.
Yet, the man who supposedly conducted studies for the CDC proving
that vaccines do not cause autism, is a wanted criminal for stealing
millions of dollars from the CDC, and is still on the run from the law.
But that story is seldom, if ever, reported in the mainstream media.
(See: CDC Vaccine Link to Autism Scandal: The Wrong Man was Condemned)
To understand the autism-vaccine debate one must look outside of the
heavily Big Pharma funded mainstream media, such as this report by Emmy
Award winning journalist Ben Swann:
The Canary Party has also produced an excellent video, narrated by Rob Schnieder:
Vaccine Industry Watchdog Obtains CDC Documents That Show
Statistically Significant Risks of Autism Associated with Vaccine
Preservative Thimerosal
Biochemist Brian Hooker, scientific advisor to A Shot of Truth, reveals CDC knew of risks for over a decade.
by A Shot of TruthPRWeb
For nearly ten years, Brian Hooker has been requesting documents that
are kept under tight wraps by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). His more than 100 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
requests have resulted in copious evidence that the vaccine preservative
Thimerosal,
which is still used in the flu shot that is administered to pregnant
women and infants, can cause autism and other neurodevelopmental
disorders.
Dr. Hooker, a PhD scientist, worked with two members of Congress to
craft the letter to the CDC that recently resulted in his obtaining
long-awaited data from the CDC, the significance of which is historic.
According to Hooker, the data on over 400,000 infants born between 1991
and 1997, which was analyzed by CDC epidemiologist Thomas Verstraeten,
MD, “proves unequivocally that in 2000, CDC officials were informed
internally of the very high risk of autism, non-organic sleep disorder
and speech disorder associated with Thimerosal exposure.”
When the results of the Verstraeten study were first reported outside
the CDC in 2005, there was no evidence that anyone but Dr. Verstraeten
within the CDC had known of the very high 7.6-fold elevated relative
risk of autism from exposure to Thimerosal during infancy. But now,
clear evidence exists. A newly-acquired abstract
from 1999 titled, “Increased risk of developmental neurologic
impairment after high exposure to Thimerosal containing vaccine in first
month of life” required the approval of top CDC officials prior to its
presentation at the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) conference.
Thimerosal, which is 50% mercury by weight, was used in most childhood
vaccines and in the RhoGAM® shot for pregnant women prior to the early
2000s.
The CDC maintains there is “no relationship between
Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism rates in children,” even
though the data from the CDC’s own Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD)
database shows a very high risk. There are a number of public records to
back this up, including this Congressional Record from May 1, 2003.
The CDC’s refusal to acknowledge thimerosal’s risks is exemplified by a
leaked statement from Dr. Marie McCormick, chair of the
CDC/NIH-sponsored Immunization Safety Review at IOM. Regarding
vaccination, she said in 2001, “…we are not ever going to come down that
it [autism] is a true side effect….” Also of note, the former director
of the CDC, which purchases $4 billion worth of vaccines annually, is
now president of Merck’s vaccine division.
Dr. Hooker’s fervent hope for the future: “We must ensure that this
and other evidence of CDC malfeasance are presented to Congress and the
public as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence. Children’s
futures are at stake.” A divide within the autism community has led to
some activists demanding that compensation to those with vaccine-injury
claims be the top priority before Congress. Dr. Hooker maintains that
prevention, “protecting our most precious resource – children’s minds,”
must come first. “Our elected officials must be informed about
government corruption that keeps doctors and patients in the dark about
vaccine risks.”
Referring to an organization that has seen its share of controversy
this past year, Dr. Hooker remarked, “It is unfortunate that SafeMinds
issued a press release on my information, is accepting credit for my
work and has not supported a worldwide ban on Thimerosal.”
Brian Hooker, PhD, PE, has 15 years experience in the field of
bioengineering and is an associate professor at Simpson University where
he specializes in biology and chemistry. His over 50 science and
engineering papers have been published in internationally recognized,
peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Hooker has a son, aged 16, who developed
normally but then regressed into autism after receiving
Thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Dr. Brian Hooker’s investigative research is sponsored by the Focus Autism Foundation.
The Focus Autism Foundation is dedicated to providing information to
the public that exposes the cause or causes of the autism epidemic and
the rise of chronic illnesses – focusing specifically on the role of
vaccinations. To learn more, visit focusautisminc.org. A Shot of Truth is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and educational website sponsored by Focus Autism.
AutismOne is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides
education and supports advocacy efforts for children and families
touched by an autism diagnosis. To learn more, visit autismone.org. Read the Full Press Release Here.
It's time for Cummings to walk the plank for abusing the privilege of the frank.
David dared to take on Goliath, and won.
St. George slayed the dragon.
Now Texan Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote and King
Street Patriots, is taking on Congressman Elijah Cummings instead of
standing down and quietly returning to her family business and home.
Cummings picked the wrong target when he chose to pursue his own War on a Woman.
Cummings is not the prophet Elijah returned.
He's a bully who used his office to try to intimidate Catherine and
distract True the Vote before the 2012 elections on it and Catherine
called him on it, publicly, by announcing during her recent testimony
before Congress that she would file an ethics complaint with Congress
calling for investigation of Cummings and following through instead of
folding under pressure.
On October 18, 2012, Politico reported that Cummings had "sent two
letters to [True the Vote] seeking 'specific documents about the manner
in which True the Vote and its affiliated organizations have been
challenging the registration of thousands of voters across the country
based on insufficient, inaccurate and faulty evidence'" (www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82584.html#ixzz2WQ81dtuR).
What did Cummings and Politico apparently consider a request for "specific documents"?
Cummings closed his letter of October 4, 2012 to True the Vote founder and president Catherine Engelbrecht this way:
"I request that you provide the following information and documents:
1. a list of all individual voter registration challenges by state,
county, and precinct submitted to governmental election entities,
including correspondence and determinations by election officials
relating to each challenge;
2. copies of all letters sent to states, counties, or other entities
alleging non-compliance with the National Voter Registration Act for
failing to conduct voter registration list maintenance prior to the
November elections;
3. a list of voter registration rolls by state, county, and precinct
that True the Vote is currently reviewing for potential challenges;
4. copies of all training materials used for volunteers, affiliates, or other entities;
5. copies of computer programs, research software, and databases used by True the Vote to review voter registration;
6. all contracts, agreements, and memoranda of understanding between
True the Vote and affiliates or other entities relating to the terms of
use of True the Vote research software and databases;
7. a list all organizations and volunteer groups that currently have
access to True the Vote computer programs, research software, and
databases; and 8. a list of vendors of voter information, voter
registration lists, and other databases used by True the Vote, its
volunteers, and its affiliates.
"Please provide these documents by October 14, 2012. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
An impossible and expensive task to be completed in less than 10 days,
but a clever way to grind True the Vote activities to a halt if it had
tried to comply with Cummings' personal wish list.
Was Cummings coordinating with the IRS minions who sent onerous and
improper information and document requests to True the Vote in an
attempt to justify delaying decision on True the Vote's application,
thereby hampering True the Vote's fund raising efforts (for example, it
had to return a $35,000 contribution because it had not received
application approval), and to keep it so busy with such requests that it
did not have time to pursue its purposes before Election Day 2012?
Now THAT merits investigating!
Catherine wisely and hopefully responded to Cummings' request by
offering to meet with him in Washington D.C. to explain the mission of
True the Vote and to address his concerns, stating:
"I believe we agree on many common goals, such as the right of every
American to have the opportunity to participate in a fair and legal
electoral process. It was of great concern to me that you had suddenly
requested a considerable amount of documentation on the basis of news
reports which offered limited balance and an over-simplification of the
facts. I find it regrettable that your office did not reach out to True
The Vote directly before launching a personal ad-hoc investigation.
Election integrity is a serious concern across the nation – the state of
Maryland is no exception. In this year alone, as reported by The
Washington Post, a federal congressional candidate seeking to join
Maryland's Congressional Delegation was forced to resign from her race
by Democratic Party officials after alleged felony double voting was
uncovered in her voting history."
Catherine wryly added: "It is both obvious and unfortunate that you are
not familiar with all of the details of the mission or methods of True
the Vote. This letter serves as an effort to coordinate a convenient
meeting time in your Washington, D.C. office, during which I can brief
you and your staff about our program and help dispel any misconceptions
you may have. In the interim, if you anticipate making any future
comments about True the Vote, please do not hesitate to contact me
directly so that I may provide you with accurate information. As always,
you are welcome to join an upcoming training session before Election
Day."
Obviously frustrated, Cummings responded with an ultimatum in an October
18 letter agreeing to meet only if True the Vote turned over his
requested documents to "Congress" and once again proceeded to demand
even more documents.
Cummings: "On October 4, 2012, I sent you a letter requesting specific
documents about the manner in which True the Vote and its affiliated
organizations have been challenging the registration of thousands of
legitimate voters across the country based on insufficient, inaccurate,
and faulty evidence. I requested these documents by October 14, 2012. To
date, you have not produced a single document. Instead, you responded
by claiming that my request was based on 'an over-simplification of the
facts' and 'second-hand knowledge or poor staff-researched understanding
of our organization's activities.' Rather than providing any documents
that would shed light on your organization's activities, you attacked
election officials in Ohio and Wisconsin for not doing their jobs.
Rather than providing any documents that would bring greater
transparency to these efforts – a goal you claim you share – you offered
only to meet with me to 'dispel any misconceptions.' I accept your
offer to come to Washington to answer these allegations, but only after
you provide the documents I requested."
Cummings added; "In addition to documents relating to your efforts to
challenge legitimate voter registrations, today I am also requesting
documents relating to your plan to deploy hundreds of thousands of
personnel across the country on Election Day to challenge access to the
polls for people you believe should not be allowed to vote."
Townhall's Katie Pavlich offered perspective: "Despite what Cummings
implied in his letter, True the Vote doesn't have an obligation to
'produce a single document.' Cummings is in the minority, lacks subpoena
power and has no authority to force True the Vote to hand over anything
and therefore, he is resorting to intimidation tactics against True the
Vote, its leadership and its members as a result. He is abusing his
power on the Oversight Committee by using these tactics, implying he has
more power on the Committee than he actually does and is
misrepresenting the committee headed not by him, but Chairman Darrell
Issa."
Cummings then went on MSNBC to attack True the Vote and True the Vote responded with this press release:
TRUE THE VOTE CHARGES REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS WITH DEFAMATION PER SE
Election integrity organization demands retraction about misstatements made by Rep. Cummings on national television
HOUSTON, TX. October 29, 2012 ¯ True the Vote (TTV), the nonpartisan
election integrity organization, today formally demanded that Maryland
Congressman Elijah Cummings retract a series of false statements made
about the group repeatedly by him last week on the cable news network,
MSNBC.
The October 29, 2012 letter from True the Vote's attorney, Brock Akers
stated, "We are shocked at your comments on 'The Ed Show' of MSNBC,
which you either know not to be true or have done nothing to assure
their accuracy. We had higher hopes for you as an otherwise respected
Member of Congress."
Akers continued, "Each and every one of these allegations is
categorically false, has no basis in truth, and is not anything...other
than a conjured allegation of some individual seeking to distort
reality. This defamation per se is shameful. Without so much as the
common courtesy to meet with Ms. Engelbrecht, where you could have
quickly learned how off track your allegations are and have been, you
instead go on national television and call this group names and cast
them in the most unflattering light possible."
True the Vote continues to offer to meet in order to brief Rep. Cummings
and his staff, yet demands a full and public retraction of recent false
statements on MSNBC.
The letter has been made available for viewing here.
True The Vote (TTV) a nonpartisan, nonprofit grassroots organization
focused on preserving election integrity is operated by citizens for
citizens, to inspire and equip volunteers for involvement at every stage
of our electoral process. TTV empowers organizations and individuals
across the nation to actively protect the rights of legitimate voters,
regardless of their political party affiliation. For more information,
please visit www.truethevote.org.
In "The Left's War on True the Vote and Catherine Engelbrecht: Where It All Began" (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/01/The-Left-s-War-on-
True-the-Vote-and-Catherine-Engelbrecht-Where-It-All-Began), Brandon
Darby reported that True the Vote's "crime" was "[finding]irregularities
in Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee's turf and an ACORN
affiliated group – and [telling] on them" and that "[t]he left-of-center
effort to hide the irregularities of our nation's many 'ACORNs' and
'Sheila Jackson Lees' has grown into involving," among others named,
Cummings, one of the 75 House Democrats who voted NOT to defund ACORN.
That makes perfect sense.
In "True Scandal: A tea-party group targeted by Democrats gets attention
from the IRS – and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF" at
www.nationalreview.com/article/348756/true-scandal-jillian-kay-melchior,
Jillian Kay Melchior concluded:
"...Catherine says the harassment [by federal government agencies] has
forced her to seriously reconsider whether her political activity is
worth the government harassment she's faced. 'I left a thriving family
business with my husband that I loved, to do something I didn't
necessarily love, but [which] I thought had to be done,' she says. 'But I
really think if we don't do this, if we don't stand up and speak now,
there might not [always] be that chance.'
"Her husband offers an additional observation: 'If you knew my wife,
you'd know she doesn't back down from anybody. They picked on the wrong
person when they started picking on her.'"
"Fittingly, Catherine Engelbrecht, the mother/wife/businesswoman heading
King Street Patriots, closed the National Summit by displaying a 'belt
of truth' that had been sent to her as a supporter and referenced
Ephesisans 6.
'10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. 11
Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm
against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the
world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of
wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor
of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done
everything, to stand firm.
'14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and
having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your
feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all,
taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish
all the flaming missiles of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with
this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all
the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me
in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of
the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in
proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.'
Catherine would not be cowed.
Catherine boldly wrote to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the House
Ethics Committee on behalf of her nonprofit organizations, True the Vote
and King Street Patriots, her private business interests, her family
and herself, seeking a formal investigation by the Office of
Congressional Ethics into "certain actions, pressures and unauthorized
and improper inquiries initiated against [her] organizations, [her]
family and [herself] by Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform.
Catherine's letter stated:
"Specifically, I believe that Rep. Cummings misrepresented his authority
as a Member of Congress in order to intimidate me and others associated
with me, and further, that Rep. Cummings may have been involved in the
organizing of a series of invasive inquisitions into my personal,
organizational and business affairs by various federal agencies, agents
and bureaucracies over the past four years.
"The rules of the U.S. House of Representatives impose basic standards
of honesty, integrity and public service on all Members, Officers,
employees and staff of the House, to-wit: 'A Member, Delegate, Resident
Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct himself at
all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.
[House Rule 23, clause 1.]
Did Cummings meet that standard?
Catherine doesn't think so,so she continued:
"One of the citizens' organizations that I founded, True the Vote, has
been on the receiving end of abusive attacks from Rep. Cummings, which
purportedly were on behalf of the House OGR Committee – but were not. We
ask the OCE to determine whether the True the Vote | 7232 Wynnwood Lane
| Houston, Texas 77008 communications to me and to my organization,
True the Vote, constituted a violation of the rules of the House of
Representatives.
"Further, in the last four years, both of my organizations, my family's
businesses and our personal finances have been subjected to over 15
instances of audit or investigation by four separate federal agencies
since 2010 – all of which immediately followed my founding of two
citizens organizations in Texas and filing IRS Forms 1023 and 1024
seeking tax-exemption for those two entities.
"We therefore request that OCE investigate whether Rep. Cummings and/or
any person on his staff or at his direction played any role whatsoever
in causing or initiating any or all of the inquiries and actions of
multiple federal agencies to descend upon my organizations, my family
and our personal business(es) over the past four years.
"Appended here are letters from Rep. Cummings which can only be
characterized as a concerted effort on his part to bully True the Vote.
The letters represent that he is acting on behalf of the House OGR
Committee; however, we have subsequently learned that this was not an
official committee activity or inquiry, but rather Rep. Cummings – and
his staff's – personal inquiry into the operations and activities of my
grassroots citizens' organization.
"What possible interest can Rep. Cummings have in that grassroots
organization, whose only objective is to protect the integrity and
honesty of America's elections? We are a voters' rights organization and
we have been maligned and mistreated by Rep. Cummings' attacks.
"We believe that Rep. Cummings' actions have violated the House rules,
represent an abuse of power on his part and are unethical and arrogant.
We want to know whether Rep. Cummings' attention to True the Vote played
any role in the federal agency actions related to my family and me –
including the three-plus years' delay in the granting of the tax exempt
status of True the Vote and King Street Patriots."
"The letters that we received from Rep. Cummings attacking and
oppressing True the Vote and me were sent through the franking
privilege, and presented as seemingly official correspondence from the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. We believe Rep.
Cumming's actions, in using his official position to attack my
organization, were and are improper. Therefore, we respectfully request
that Rep. Cummings be investigated and a determination made as to the
use and potential misuse of taxpayer funds to advance a personal,
political vendetta against my organizations, my family and me.
"We request Rep. Cummings and his staff be required to respond under
oath regarding their role in initiating or supporting the years of
targeted government attacks on my family, my business and my
organizations. We want the truth; nothing more, nothing less."
WOW!
DON'T MESS WITH CATHERINE!!!
At least the Government had Al Capone sent to prison for tax evasion.
Now it's time for Cummings to walk the plank for abusing the privilege
of the frank.
