Published on Truthout, 20 April 2015.

Shortly after BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, 2010, one of the most politically well-connected attorneys in the United States was appointed to administer the $20 billion fund to, in theory, pay compensation to those harmed by BP’s catastrophe.

President Obama and BP’s chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, agreed that attorney Kenneth Feinberg should head the fund. Feinberg would later be chosen, also by Obama, to oversee the compensation of the top executives of the banks that were bailed out with US tax dollars in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

He has, almost needless to say, been accused of being a fox guarding a chicken house.

Feinberg’s firm was paid $1.25 million per month by BP – that we know of (Feinberg refused to disclose the full amount of his compensation and the details of his deal with BP) – to run the so-called Gulf Coast Claims Facility.

Continue reading the full story at Truthout.