The bottom has fallen out of the housing market. The financial market is in turmoil. Jobs, home values and retirement funds are melting away. Who was keeping tabs on criminal conduct?

According to a New York Times report last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not, and has not been since September 2001, in a position to pursue the types of crimes that has the economy reeling.

In the wake of 9/11, the immediate concern was to protect the nation against domestic attacks. To that end, the Justice Department gutted the FBI’s criminal investigations division, shifting resources and agents to terrorism and intelligence work.

If the focus was understandable then, it has since become a serious threat to the integrity of the financial system. …

The White House ignored repeated warnings about the extent of mortgage fraud and denied requests for funds to hire more crime investigators. The FBI could hire one new agent for its criminal division in the 2007 budget cycle, the report indicated. The financial collapse argues the need to uncover the scope of criminal conduct and to prosecute the culpable. The single-minded pursuit of terrorism, to the neglect of financial crimes, has proved costly, posing, in its own way, a threat to the nation’s security.

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