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Over the weekend, I watched a Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix – which she hates. I was surprised to hear my own voice – probably ripped from an old documentary or news report – do the voiceover part a few times near the beginning. (The producers didn’t give me credit, just like the producers did The biggest night in pop (My friend David Breskin paid a lot of money to get access to the tapes that were being recorded in the studio and used them to carry the entire film.)
But I hesitate. This is a column about Martha, who had her career and her company taken away from her for a crime that — in my opinion — should never have gone to trial. I argued at the time that the government was going after “America’s homemaker” with a baseball bat because it acted on a tip from its broker that CEO Sam Waxwell was selling his AmClone stock. And then in a panic tried to cover up this suspicious crime. . (I wrote a cover story for Businessweek on Martha when she was taking her company public.)
The man who led the investigation and brought the charges against Martha was James Comey, then the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Because that jurisdiction extends to Wall Street, whoever occupies the role essentially acts as the federal government’s chief prosecutor of white-collar criminals. It has been a launch pad for many prosecutors, including Rudy Giuliani. (Eliot Spitzer clerked there and worked his way up Wall Street from Albany as New York’s attorney general.)
Comey, of course, was fired as FBI director in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump. He also influenced the 2016 election by sending an open letter to Congress, suggesting that Hillary Clinton could be indicted for sending emails from a private server days before the election. (She wasn’t.)
Martha Stewart was at the top of her game with a billion-dollar brand that was a role model for multi-platform journalism and commerce. She was a real influencer and a tempting target for anyone trying to make a name for themselves. Was she suffering from hubris and a sense of entitlement? Maybe Did she deserve to go to jail for what she did—and lose the right to run her company forever? No
There is another lesson, too, in seeing how an aggressive prosecutor motivated by factors other than justice can destroy the lives of those he pursues. I think about that when I look at the choices made by the incoming administration – and hope we don’t see more people targeted for what they did, rather than what they did. is
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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Important news
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This edition of CEO Daily was produced by Joey Abrams.
