A Judge Protects Taxpayers

Before Americans lose too much respect for the federal judiciary, they might consider Judge Robert Wilkins, who last week affirmed that the taxpayer safety net around financial services still has limits. Judge Wilkins is a 2010 Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He rejected an effort by the Securities and Exchange Commission to turn a modest federal insurance program into a boundless compensation scheme for defrauded and disappointed investors. The SEC was seeking to force the government-created Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) to assist thousands of victims defrauded by R. Allen Stanford. Stanford was recently sentenced to 110 years in prison for operating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Read Wall Street Journal report here.