Gary J. Aguirre

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Gary J. Aguirre is an American lawyer, former investigator with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and whistleblower.

After working in a law firm briefly, he became a public defender, then worked as a trial lawyer in California. Having reached his professional and financial goals, he took an extended break in 1995. In 2000, he decided to go into public service and went back to law school, focusing on international and securities law.

After earning his second law degree, he applied for a job with the SEC, where he became the lead investigator on an insider trading case involving Pequot Capital Management. Suspecting the leaked information came from John J. Mack, a Wall Street titan and major contributor to the 2004 campaign of President George W. Bush, Aguirre wanted to subpoena Mack, but supervisors told him Mack had too much "political clout" and would not be pursued. Aguirre complained to a superior about the preferential treatment being given Mack and was fired without warning. A Senate investigation later found his termination to have been an illegal reprisal.^[1]

In May 2010, Pequot Capital settled its insider trading charges with the SEC for $28 million^[2] and a month later, the SEC settled the wrongful termination suit filed by Aguirre for $755,000.^[3] Aguirre returned to private practice in San Diego in 2008, specializing in securities law. He has emerged as a major critic of the SEC, calling it an agency that was set up to protect the public from Wall Street, but now protects Wall Street from the public.^[4][5] He represents Darcy Flynn, also an SEC whistleblower, who in summer 2011 was interviewed by staff from three congressional committees. He said that the SEC had destroyed thousands of records of preliminary investigations and that SEC investigators trying to pursue a case against Deutsche Bank were thwarted by Richard H. Walker, then SEC director of enforcement, who shortly thereafter, took a job at Deutsche Bank as general counsel.^[6] He also represents Rodolfo Michelon, a whistleblower, a former comptroller at Sempra Global, who claims Sempra paid kickbacks to Mexican government officials and has filed a suit against the SEC alleging the SEC "outsourced" its investigation of Sempra to a law firm with ties to Sempra, in effect subverting the law.^[7]