Tenure At SEC
As acting General Counsel, Vollmer was quickly thrust into the spotlight as he testified on February 4, 2009 before the United States House Committee on Financial Services subcommittee with SEC Director of the Division of Enforcement Linda Thomsen and other senior staff from the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The subject of the hearings were on why the SEC had failed to act when Harry Markopolos, a private fraud investigator from Boston alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing his persistent and unsuccessful efforts to get the SEC to investigate Bernard L. Madoff, beginning in 1999. Vollmer claimed executive privilege in declining to answer some questions, and Vollmer and the other SEC officials' lack of cooperation with the enquiry was strongly criticised by Subcommittee chairman Paul Kanjorski and Representative Gary Ackerman saying "Your value to the American people is worthless. ... Our economy is in crisis, Mr. Vollmer. We thought the enemy was Mr. Madoff. I think it's you."
On 18 February 2009, 14 days later, the SEC announced that Vollmer would 'leave the Commission and return to the private sector'. It was later announced that he would take up a post with his former firm, WilmerHale.
Read more about this topic: Andy Vollmer
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“A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.”
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