Former California governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown has run for President as a Democrat, but he may start gunning for another Democrat — in court.  Brown reportedly may open an investigation into actions taken by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in relation to the IndyMac failure last month.  The failure cost the government billions in insured deposits and threw a lot of people out of work, most of whom blame Schumer for delivering the coup de grace:

California’s attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank’s collapse by releasing confidential information.

At issue is a much-publicized letter that Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, sent in June to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) and Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) questioning the company’s ability to survive. …

In a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown last week, 51 former IndyMac workers wrote: “From the day (Schumer’s) letter was made public on June 26 until the closure of the bank, a run on the bank took place and the failure became inevitable.”

Schumer’s office tried to spin this as a Republican dirty trick, but that’s one charge that will be hard to make.  During his term as governor and over his entire political career, Brown never gave the impression of being a closet conservative.  He didn’t earn the moniker “Governor Moonbeam” for his centrist policies.

However sharply left his political outlook may be or have been, Brown has a pretty good reputation for honesty and integrity.  As far as I recall, the only “scandal” ever attached to Brown was his one-time romance of Linda Ronstadt, which was a scandal that many young men in California would have welcomed for themselves at the time.

If Brown finds anything actionable against Schumer, he’ll pursue it.  Frankly, I don’t think Schumer did anything for which he can be prosecuted.  However, his role in the collapse of IndyMac and the costs to taxpayers should force New York voters to consider his retirement in the next election.  If Brown can help make that clearer to Schumer’s electorate, so much the better.