By Claire Bernish

As it turns out, the rumors were true — HSBC escaped prosecution for money laundering because the behemoth bank was “too big to jail.”

A U.S. Congressional report, entitled “Too Big to Jail: Inside the Obama Justice Department’s Decision Not to Hold Wall Street Accountable,” found officials in the U.K. applied the economic threat cum warning of “market turmoil” to ensure HSBC wouldn’t be subject to prosecution for rather serious allegations.

Among a multitude of other findings, according to the report’s Executive Summary [all emphasis has been added]:

Senior DOJ leadership, including Attorney General [Eric] Holder, overruled an internal recommendation by DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section to prosecute HSBC because of DOJ leadership’s concern that prosecuting the bank would have serious adverse consequences on the financial system […]

Attorney General Holder misled Congress concerning DOJ’s reasons for not bringing a criminal prosecution against HSBC.

Chaired by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Committee on Financial Services initiated a study in March 2013 concerning the Department of Justice’s incongruent decision not to prosecute the London-based bank, nor its executives or employees, for laundering drug cartel money.

From the beginning, the Committee encountered “non-compliance” in efforts to obtain “relevant documents” from both the DOJ and Dept. of the Treasury, “necessitating the issuance of subpoenas to both agencies.” In fact, it took the Committee three full years from its initial request for information to ultimately procure the necessary items for review, and records from the Treasury show the DOJ “has not been forthright with Congress or the American people concerning its decision” not to prosecute the Big Bank.

As the summary noted further:

“Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch and Secretary [of the Treasury Jack] Lew remain in default of their legal obligation to produce the subpoenaed records to the Committee,” and, in fact,

“DOJ’s and Treasury’s longstanding efforts to impede the Committee’s investigation may constitute contempt and obstruction of Congress.”