Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took part in a Senate Banking Committee hearing titled “Wall Street Reform: Oversight of Financial Stability and Consumer and Investor Protections.”

Warren asked the committee — consisting of bank regulators from the federal government — about the “last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial.” Not a single witness was able to bring up anAi??occurrenceAi??of the government actually taking a big bank to trial in recent times. This is how Warren followed up on that shocking response from federal regulators:

WARREN:Anyone else want to tell me about the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? [silence] I just want to note on this, there are district attorneys and U.S. Attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example as they put it. I’m really concerned that too big too fail has become too big to jail. That just seems wrong to me. [applause from audience]

Watch it (relevant section at 03:26):