Jesse Eisinger
Jesse Eisinger is a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. In April 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.
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Jesse Eisinger is a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He is the author of the “The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives.”
In April 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 serves on the advisory board of the University of California, Berkeley’s Financial Fraud Institute. And he was a consultant on season 3 of the HBO series “Succession.”
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, NewYorker.com, The Washington Post, The Baffler and The American Prospect and on NPR and “This American Life.” 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.
New Documents Show Hedge Fund Magnetar Influenced Deal, Despite Denials
A Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission document shows Magnetar selected assets for a billion dollar Merrill Lynch mortgage securities deal, despite having long asserted otherwise.
Goldman’s Self-Help: Eat, Pay, Trade
Looking inward in the grand tradition of American self-improvement, the investment bank promises to be nicer and more transparent, but ignores the structural problems that helped ignite the financial crisis.
What Do 50 Cent, Carmen Electra & Shaquille O’Neal Have in Common? Touting Penny Stocks
Rapper 50 Cent urges millions of Twitter followers to invest in an obscure penny stock, the latest in a long list of celebrities offering investment advice that’s long on risk and short on security.
Standard & Poor’s Triple A Ratings Collapse Again. The Question is Why?
Two weeks ago, Standard & Poor’s put out a press release: The credit rating agency warned it was poised to <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-15/s-p-says-it-incorrectly-analyzed-re-remic-mortgage-bonds.html">downgrade</a> almost 1,200 complex mortgage securities.
The 'Subsidy': How a Handful of Merrill Lynch Bankers Helped Blow Up Their Own Firm
The builders of mortgage securities at industry giant Merrill Lynch couldn’t find buyers for their wares. So they paid another group at Merrill to take billions of dollars of the unwanted assets.
Where Are the Financial Crisis Prosecutions?
You may have noticed that prosecutors in this country are in something of a white-collar slump lately.
Trading for the Client? Or Winning on Its Own?
The regulatory overhaul of the financial system that passed last summer scored a big victory: It barred investment banks’ wagering with their own capital. Many expect Wall Street will find a way around these rules.
SEC Investigating Citigroup Mortgage Deal
The SEC is investigating whether in the run-up to the financial crisis Citi acted improperly as it created and marketed a $1 billion CDO.
The Dukes of Moral Hazard: The Dangers of Quantitative Easing
Across the world, there are booms. Chinese Internet companies are flourishing. Energy companies are finding new sources of power. Commercial real estate is coming back.