WASHINGTON — Three federal investigations into alleged financial misconduct — two of them active for more than two years — were closed without charges or public explanation in the final weeks of the last fiscal quarter, according to documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests reviewed by The Freethinking Times.
The investigations, which had been active for between fourteen and thirty-one months, involved two of the five largest U.S. financial institutions by assets and one publicly traded technology company with a market capitalization above $100 billion. The agency declined to comment on any of the cases, citing standard policy of neither confirming nor denying the existence of specific investigations — a position that critics argue functions as a permanent shield against public scrutiny.
“The pattern here is not subtle,” said one former enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still consults with firms under federal oversight. “You don’t run an investigation for two and a half years and then close it quietly unless someone made a decision that had nothing to do with the evidence.”
What the Documents Show
The FOIA response, which took eleven months to fulfill and arrived heavily redacted, nonetheless reveals the dates on which the investigations were formally closed, the approximate number of personnel-hours logged, and — in one case — a single-line entry reading “matter resolved, no further action warranted.” No resolution agreement, consent order, or formal declination memo was attached.
Legal experts contacted for this article said that phrasing is unusual. A formal declination typically includes a written statement of reasons, even in heavily redacted form. Its absence suggests either that no such document was created, or that it was withheld in its entirety.
The agency’s budget justification submitted to Congress the same week included language touting “a record number of enforcement resolutions” in the fiscal year — a figure that, read alongside the investigation closures, raises questions about how the agency is counting its outcomes.
After this article was sent to the agency for comment, a spokesperson responded by email stating that “the agency does not discuss the details of specific investigations” and that “resolutions take many forms, and the framing of ‘closure without action’ may reflect a misunderstanding of our case management process.” The spokesperson declined to specify which forms of resolution applied to the cases described in the FOIA response.
A Pattern Worth Watching
This is not the first time the agency has faced questions about the gap between its public enforcement narrative and its actual case outcomes. A 2023 audit by the Government Accountability Office found that the agency’s reported “enforcement actions” included a significant number of cases that resulted in no monetary penalty and no admission of wrongdoing.
The Freethinking Times will continue to pursue this story. Readers with relevant documents or direct knowledge of these cases are encouraged to contact the newsroom.
This article is based on documents obtained through FOIA requests filed in April 2025. The documents are available in full on our document archive page.
Correction, April 17, 2026: An earlier version of this article described the FOIA response as taking “ten months” to fulfill. The correct figure, per the dated agency correspondence on file, is eleven months. The text has been corrected.