Duffy calls for House investigation into JPMorgan, Kreitlow decries delay

Wisconsin freshman Republican Representative Sean Duffy says the House should launch an investigation into JPMorgan, and its recent loss of $2 billion from a hedge fund investment.

Duffy says the good news is that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for JPMorgan’s blunder. Even so, as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, he says they need to investigate. “Do we need to find out what’s going on by way of hearings? Absolutely. So there’s a fundamental understanding in Congress as to what is happening with some of these trades.”

Already the U.S. Senate and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are beginning their own inquiries. Duffy’s Democratic opponent for re-election, former state Sen. Pat Kreitlow of Chippewa Falls, says it’s about time Duffy steps forward, “Why did it take him two weeks to flip-flop on the issue? Was he looking for someone’s permission to speak out? And is he going to give back the thousands of dollars that he got from JPMorgan, some of it coming seven days of co-signing a letter that tried to pressure watchdog agencies to rolling back or watering down the Wall Street reforms that the American public wanted after the crash of 2008?”

Duffy’s campaign contributors do include political action committees from JPMorgan, Bank of American and Goldman Sachs. But he says it’s appropriate to have the financial sector’s ear: “No, I don’t have links to JPMorgan. Listen, I have a lot of financial sector talk to me about their opinions and thoughts. Everyone comes in and gives me their thoughts. My local banks give me their thoughts.”

Duffy says he opposes consolidation of banks that make them “too big to fail.”