Check out this interview by Steve Forbes over at Forbes.com.  No one else is really talking about this.  I read excerpts on the radio program a couple of weeks ago.  Please share the story.  And note, a bankruptcy judge has given former FBI Director Louis Freeh subpoena power in the case.

By the way, just think of how the price of oil killed many a SUV sale and thus jobs in this country.  If this turns out to be the real deal, are you telling me this kind of lawlessness is free-market?  Hardly.  

Steve Forbes: Now, we all know what’s happened to the price of oil. What do you see happening? Do you think this is just a temporary downturn?

John Catsimatidis: No. I think it’s a very interesting thing. We’re in the middle of taking over a company in Tulsa, Okla.

Steve Forbes: Now, that’s an interesting situation.

John Catsimatidis: SemGroup.

Steve Forbes: They, SemGroup, they got in trouble because they didn’t time right on oil prices.

John Catsimatidis: We discovered that that was the problem of the whole country. What happened was that SemGroup was probably short 30% of the country’s oil.

Steve Forbes: Wow.

John Catsimatidis: That’s a big number. So when they lost, it’s like Hunt’s when they were involved in silver. But this is in reverse. They kept shorting oil all the way up. Some forces on the other side knew they were shorting it, and they were, what do you call it on Wall Street?

Steve Forbes: Squeeze.

John Catsimatidis: Squeezing the shorts. So they were squeezing the shorts, forced the price of oil up to $147. And when they couldn’t make the $500 million margin goal, the market went straight down. Steve, this is a big discovery. We turned it over to the investigators on this, because it wasn’t the oil companies that raised the price of oil.

Don’t forget, when oil was $40 a barrel two years ago, the oil companies in the world were producing 86 million barrels a day. When it went to $140, the oil companies were producing 86 million barrels a day. When it went back down to $40, the oil companies were producing 86 million barrels a day. It wasn’t the oil companies. It was certain hedge funds that were playing ping pong with each other, raising it, and squeezing this company that had the shorts. And we think that some of these hedge funds were subject, they had insider information on this guy being short, this company being short 30% of the market. But, you know, maybe you’ll probably read about it on the front page of The Wall Street Journal one of these days. Or maybe the front page of the Forbes.

Steve Forbes: Oh, Forbes would be better, don’t you think?

John Catsimatidis: Yes.

Steve Forbes: Wow.

John Catsimatidis: Maybe we’ll give you the exclusive when we find out.

Steve Forbes: Look forward to it.

John Catsimatidis: But this story has to get out, because it’s probably a trillion dollar fraud on the American people.

Steve Forbes: That’s extraordinary. So what should be the price of oil, $40, $50 a barrel?

John Catsimatidis: I would say between the cost of producing it and the oil companies a legitimate profit. It’s anywhere from $45 to maybe $65, on the high side, $75. But no more than that. The price of $147 was an avarice. It’s like you said, squeezing the shorts. And I’m convinced that if this company, SemGroup, was able to make that $500 million margin call, at $147, when it had it, the next day, you would have seen $160 oil.

Steve Forbes: Wow. So the hedges were just going to destroy them?

John Catsimatidis: They were just going to destroy them.