"The Man Who Moves Markets"

…. At Fraud Fest, in a recorded interview aired from the stage, Mitts rebutted criticisms that Block had laid out in detail. Block appeared on-screen immediately afterward. He likened Mitts’s comments to “a typical management response to being busted,” prompting laughter from the seats where the short sellers had congregated. Mitts’s scholarship, Block said, was “a pile of shit from top to bottom.” (Block has also accused the professor of academic fraud, and wrote a letter of complaint to Columbia’s human-resources department. The university took no action against Mitts; he was granted tenure during Block’s offensive.)

Mitts told me that his aims and motives have been badly mischaracterized. If he has been helpful to government officials, he said, “I am very proud of that fact.” But he disputed the idea that he’s the tip of any spear: “The notion that a law professor is directing a federal investigation is as ridiculous as it sounds.” He also questioned the notion that an academic paper would lead a judge to find probable cause to authorize a search warrant. Indeed, the prominent former federal prosecutor Eric Rosen describes a search warrant as a message from the government that says, “We have strong evidence to believe that both a crime occurred and that you were a part of it.” What exactly made the Justice Department arrive at that belief about Block and Left is not yet clear.