Mukasey: Wall Street Mess Under Scrutiny

Tips and information about suspected wrongdoing in the Wall Street financial meltdown is flowing in and the Justice Department is considering how to respond, Attorney General Michael Mukasey disclosed on Friday.

Mukasey, in a roundtable discussion with reporters at Main Justice, said the Criminal Division's fraud section has two ongoing programs -- Operation Quick Flip and Operation Continuing Action -- that have dealt with mortgage fraud and other schemes and resulted in hundreds of charges against individual defendants.

The FBI earlier this year said it was investigating 14 corporations for insider trading and accounting fraud related to subprime mortgage loans.

Justice attorneys have not decided which laws to use yet with the new information that’s coming in, Mukasey said.

"We are also examining more broadly the question of what legal theories might apply to what facts might be found in what went wrong," Mukasey said. "People are looking at the law to see to what and to whom it might apply."

He also predicted no quick results because of the complexity of the investigations.

"Facts are still coming in...All of these would fit the category of white-collar cases, such that those tend to take somewhat longer to investigate and prosecute than...narcotics cases."