Jesse Eisinger

Senior Reporter and Editor, ProPublica

Jesse Eisinger is a senior reporter and editor 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 won the 2015 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary. He has also twice been a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

He was a regular columnist for The New York Times’s Dealbook section. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The NewYorker.com, The Washington Post, The Baffler, 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.

Jesse Eisinger appears in the following:

How the Wealthiest Americans Play the Tax Game

Monday, June 14, 2021

ProPublica's Jesse Eisinger breaks down his co-authored reporting on how inequality is baked into the US tax system.

An Opportunity for the Rich

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Part of President Trump's tax law, opportunity zones are meant to spur new investment in poor areas by reducing taxes for the wealthy. How much those communities will benefit is unclear.

Romanian Prime Minister Is Staying at Trump’s D.C. Hotel

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

It's the latest example of Trump’s company doing business with foreign officials. Two attorneys general have sued Trump over the issue, accusing him of violating the Constitution.

Trump’s Inauguration Paid Trump’s Company — With Ivanka in the Middle

Friday, December 14, 2018

As the inaugural committee planned the celebration, internal concerns were raised about whether Trump’s Washington hotel was overcharging for event space.

The Many Red Flags of Trump’s Partners in India

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The Trump Organization has five active projects in India, a country where corruption is common in the real estate industry.

How Ivanka Trump And Donald Trump, Jr., Avoided a Criminal Indictment

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

New York prosecutors were preparing a case. Then the D.A. overruled his staff after a visit from President Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. 

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Summer Friday: Chief Brown's Story, Naomi Klein Resisting Trump, Experimenting With Love, Arundhati Roy's New Novel, Justice Department Scaredy-Cats

Friday, August 18, 2017

Hear a few of our past favorite book interviews: David O. Brown talks about working as a Black Dallas police chief, Naomi Klein resists Trump, learn how to fall in love with anyone.

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Justice Department Scaredy-Cats

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Why does the Department of Justice fail to prosecute white-collar criminals? 

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What to Expect From Trump’s Economic Team

Friday, January 20, 2017

With confirmation hearings nearing an end, a look at what they revealed about the men Donald Trump has picked to run the country’s finances.

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Whose Interests Will Trump’s Administration Represent?

Friday, December 02, 2016

If Trump doesn't keep his promise to sever ties with his business, he risks setting an ethically ambiguous tone for the people he chooses to create economic and financial policies.

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Feds Pledge to Get Tougher On White-Collar Crime

Friday, September 11, 2015

Too big to jail? Not anymore. 

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Bankers' Misbehavior Might be a Matter of Culture

Friday, April 24, 2015

Deutsche Bank joins the ranks of banks punished for manipulating interest rates. A new study suggests Wall Street culture might be to blame.

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Why One Banker Went to Jail for the Financial Crisis

Friday, May 02, 2014

More than five years after the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression, only one major banker has gone to prison for crimes contributing to the Great Recession. The lack...

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What's Inside America's Banks

Thursday, January 03, 2013

More than four years after the 2008 financial crisis, public trust in banks is as low as ever. Sophisticated investors describe big banks as “black boxes” that may still be concealing enormous risks— the sort that could again take down the economy. Jesse Eisinger's investigation, written with Frank Partnoy, is called  “What’s Inside America’s Banks” and appears in the January/February issue of The Atlantic.

 

 

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Backstory: The Early Days of Bain Capital

Thursday, September 13, 2012

ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger looks at the early days of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Mitt Romney ran in the early 1990s. The firm’s work in turning around Staples is well known, but Bain was also sued several times for buying companies and selling them for a profit, without paying a finder’s fee.

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Backstory: The Jobs Bill

Thursday, March 15, 2012

On today’s Backstory, ProPublicas Jesse Eisinger talks about what’s inside a jobs bill-- The Jump-Start Our Business Act --that just passed in the House of Representatives. We’ll also look at how the Federal Reserve has dealt with the country’s largest financial firms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Wall Street Money Machine

Monday, April 25, 2011

ProPublica’s Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein, who were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for “The Wall Street Money Machine,” talk about the series, which examined how some hedge funds and banks worsened the financial crisis while making a hefty profit for themselves.  It’s ProPublica’s second Pulitzer in only its third year of publishing investigations, and it’s the first Pulitzer to be awarded to a group of stories that were never published in print.

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Reflecting on the Financial Meltdown

Friday, August 21, 2009

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is in Jackson Hole, Wyoming today at the annual meeting of economists and central bankers. Bernanke will address the group with a speech entitled...

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Credit Suisse pays out bonuses in "toxic assets"

Thursday, April 30, 2009

The AIG bonus scandal stirred intense anger from the public, the media and the president. Swiss bank Credit Suisse has adopted a creative solution to the bonus paying problem — pay p...

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The $58 Trillion in the Room

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Find out what credit derivatives really are, and how they’ve affected Wall Street during the current financial crisis. Jesse Eisinger is senior writer and Wall Street columnist for Conde Nast, and author of "The $58 Trillion in the Room" for Portfolio magazine.

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