The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives

Winner of the 2018 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award

From Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jesse Eisinger, “a fast moving, fly-on-the-wall, disheartening look at the deterioration of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission…It is a book of superheroes” (San Francisco Review of Books).

Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed “Too Big to Fail” to almost every large corporation in America—to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club—an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs—explains why in “an absorbing financial history, a monumental work of journalism…a first-rate study of the federal bureaucracy” (Bloomberg Businessweek).

Jesse Eisinger begins the story in the 1970s, when the government pioneered the notion that top corporate executives, not just seedy crooks, could commit heinous crimes and go to prison. He brings us to trading desks on Wall Street, to corporate boardrooms and the offices of prosecutors and FBI agents. These revealing looks provide context for the evolution of the Justice Department’s approach to pursuing corporate criminals through the early 2000s and into the Justice Department of today, including the prosecutorial fiascos, corporate lobbying, trial losses, and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives.

“Brave and elegant…a fearless reporter…Eisinger’s important and profound book takes no prisoners” (The Washington Post). Exposing one of the most important scandals of our time, The Chickenshit Club provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring these alleged criminals to justice. “This book is a wakeup call…a chilling read, and a needed one” (NPR.org).

Jesse Eisinger is an Assistant Managing Editor at ProPublica. He is the author of The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives. In 2011, he and a colleague won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of stories on questionable Wall Street practices that helped make the financial crisis the worst since the Great Depression. He was the lead reporter on the Secret IRS Files series that exposed the tax avoidance strategies of the ultrawealthy. The series won several prizes, including the Selden Ring in 2022. He also won the 2015 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary. He was the editor on the Friends of the Court series, which revealed how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel; it won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2024. He was a consultant on season three of the HBO series Succession. Before joining ProPublica, he was the Wall Street editor of Conde Nast Portfolio and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, covering markets and finance. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the journalist Sarah Ellison, and their daughters.