WASHINGTON — After campaigning last year as an outspoken consumer advocate and Wall Street critic, Senator Elizabeth Warren was surprisingly quiet during her first month on Capitol Hill. But that changed on Thursday at the Massachusetts senior senator’s first hearing, when she rebuked federal regulators for settling civil cases with big banks instead of taking them to trial. 
 
 Looking at the seven regulators arrayed before the Senate Banking Committee, and noting that she had often sat at the same witness table before becoming a senator, she used her new power to question why the federal government has not been more aggressive. 
 
 “The question I really want to ask is about how tough you are — about how much leverage you really have,” Warren said. “Tell me a little bit about the last few times you’ve taken the biggest financial institutions on Wall Street all the way to trial.” 
 
 A handful of supporters in the packed hearing room applauded. But none of the witnesses — representing the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and others — offered a response. 
 
 “Anybody?” Warren asked, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows above her glasses. 
 
 ‘I’m really concerned ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial.’ That just seems wrong to me.”’ 
 
 The hearing was the committee’s semiannual meeting on the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, implemented in 2010 as a response to the financial crisis. The legislation tightened laws regulating big banks and provided safeguards intended to shield consumers from abusive financial practices. 
 
 Republicans had been expected to use the hearing to attack the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency whose creation that Warren had championed, especially since one of the witnesses was the agency’s director, Richard Cordray. 
 
 But the Republicans, without explanation, held back, in effect clearing the path for Warren to take the limelight. The GOP members stuck to broad lines of questioning and did not specifically assail the consumer agency. Ranking Republican Mike Crapo of Idaho instead criticized other Dodd-Frank measures, saying that proposed rules “are far too complex.” 
 
 “I’m concerned that the regulators do not understand the cumulative effect of the hundreds of proposed rules, and that there is a lack of coordination among them,” he said. 
 
 Warren seized the hearing to chide regulators for not taking legal stands against Wall Street, saying that the threat of trial is an important tool in keeping big banks in line, despite the vast resources required to do so. 
 
 “If a party is unwilling to go to trial — either because they’re too timid or they lack resources — the consequence is they have a lot less leverage,” Warren said. “If [banks] can break the law and drag in billions in profits and then turn around and settle paying out of those profits, they don’t have that much incentive to follow the law.” 
 
 The regulators often sought to avoid directly answering Warren’s questions regarding their prosecutions. 
 
 “The institutions I supervise . . . we’ve actually had a fair number of consent orders,” Comptroller of the Currency Tom Curry said, referring to out-of-court settlements. “We do not have to bring people to trial.” 
 
 “I appreciate that you say you do not have to bring people to trial,” Warren countered. “My question is when did you bring them to trial?” 
 
 At another point, Elisse Walter, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, defended her agency, saying, “We look at the distinction between what we can get if we go to trial and what we can get if we don’t.” 
 
 Warren interrupted her: “I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does. The question I’m really asking is, can you identify when you last took the Wall Street banks to trial?” 
 
 “I will have to get back to you with the specific information,” replied Walter, her arms crossed. 
 
 Warren had pledged to help rein in wrongdoing by big banks when she ran for the Senate last year, and the financial industry poured millions into the campaign coffers of Warren’s Republican opponent — then-Senator Scott Brown — to keep her out of office. 
 
 On Thursday, Warren urged regulators to step up the legal actions. 
 
 “There are district attorneys and US attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example,” she said. 
 
 As for taking on banks, she added, “I’m really concerned ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial.’ That just seems wrong to me.” 
 
 Warren’s performance drew the praise of some fellow Democrats, including Jon Tester of Montana. 
 
 “She obviously understands the issues,” Tester said after the hearing. “She has always been somebody that, from my perspective, is looking out for the little guy. That’s exactly what she was doing.” 
 
 A few of those “little guys” sat in the packed hearing room Thursday, including a handful of members of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. The Boston-based advocacy group fights for affordable home ownership among low- and middle-class families. Bruce Marks, its chief executive, and others from the organization were among those cheering during Warren’s remarks. 
 
 “It was a breath of fresh air,” Marks said. “It sends a message to the other senators that they have to step up their game.” 
 
 Following the hearing, Warren joined fellow Democrats at a news conference in the Capitol to support the consumer bureau. Senate Republicans have renewed calls to reform the agency with proposals that Democrats say would strip the body of its regulatory teeth. 
 
 The consumer watchdog was created as part of the Dodd-Frank act, named after then-Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and former Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. It tightened Wall Street banking regulations, aiming to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. 
 
 Warren emerged as a staunch advocate of including consumer safeguards in the legislation, eventually helping create the agency in 2011. President Obama appointed Cordray over Warren to head the regulator after Senate Republicans vowed to block her nomination. 
 
 Warren then won her Senate seat, from which she said she will continue the fight for financial regulations. 
 
 “I’m just going to keep pushing,” Warren told a gaggle of reporters who watched Thursday’s hearing. “But I think you got the point.” 
 
 ||||| When she was campaigning to become the next U.S. senator to represent Massachusetts, Democrat Elizabeth Warren pledged that she would take her tough talk about enforcing Wall Street regulations to Washington and put them into action. 
 
 On Thursday, as Senator Warren got the opportunity to question regulators at her first Senate Banking Committee hearing, she bluntly asked "When did you last take... a large financial institution, a Wall Street bank, to trial?" 
 
 After much conjecture and discussion, the answer from Securities and Exchange Commission regulators was that no banks have actually been taken to trial despite the wrongdoings that led to the financial collapse of 2008. 
 
 Elisse B. Walter, chair of the SEC, said that although they can take financial institutions to trial, they typically do not go that route. 
 
 "As you know, among our remedies are penalties but the penalties we can get are limited," Walter said. "When we look at these issues, and we truly believe we have a very vigorous enforcement program, we look at the distinction between what we could get if we go to trial and what we could get if we don't." 
 
 Warren, a bankruptcy law expert who served as the chair of the Congressional oversight panel for the Wall Street bailouts, said that big banks who take part in illegal activities to bring in big money will never be compliant with the law unless there are actual prosecutions instead of just fines. 
 
 "If they can break the law and drag in billions in profits and then turn around and settle, paying out of those profits, they don't have much incentive following the law," Warren said. "It's also the case that every time there's a settlement and not a trial, we don't have those days and days and days of testimony about what those financial institutions were up to." 
 
 Warren went on to lambaste the SEC officials for not pursuing criminal prosecutions, drawing the comparison between them and then local prosecutors who go after average citizens for crimes that are arguably less egregious than almost sinking the United States economy. 
 
 "There are district attorneys and U.S. attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it," Warren said. "I've very concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial' and that just seems wrong to me." 
 
 The line of questioning drew Warren applause from some present at the hearing. 
 
 This week, Warren also joined a Democratic push against Republican opposition to re-confirming Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she helped create. 
 
 As 43 GOP senators signed a pact threatening to filibuster his confirmation, Warren helped rally 54 Senate Democrats and independents who pledged to stand by Cordray and the current scope of the agency's oversight powers. 
 
 Republicans argue that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lacks meaningful Congressional oversight while Democrats laud that part of its structure, citing the recent $85 million settlement it procured from American Express over billing and debt-collection practices as proof of the agency's value. 
 
 Still unimplemented facets of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform package and the bureau are expected to be major points of contention between Democrats and Republicans in 2013. 
 
 ||||| Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) meeting with bank regulators Thursday left bankers reeling, after she questioned why regulators had not prosecuted a bank since the financial crisis. 
 
 At one point, Warren asked why the book value of big banks was lower, when most corporations trade above book value, saying there could be only two reasons for it. 
 
 "One would be because nobody believes that the banks' books are honest," she said. "Second, would be that nobody believes that the banks are really manageable. That is, if they are too complex either for their own institutions to manage them or for the regulators to manage them." 
 
 That set off angry responses to Politico's Morning Money. "While Senator Warren had every right to ask pointed questions at today's Senate Banking Committee hearing, her claim that 'nobody believes' that bank books are honest is just plain wrong," a "top executive" emailed the financial newsletter. "Perhaps someone ought to remind the Senator that the campaign is over and she should act accordingly if she wants to be taken seriously." 
 
 The anonymous emailer said Warren was being as "extreme" as fellow freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who asserted Tuesday without evidence that secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel may have received money from "extreme or radical" groups. 
 
 In another email, a GOP bank lobbyist said, "Republicans also would like to know why the Democratic donor base has avoided trial. Maybe she should subpoena the DSCC and Obama's super PAC to answer her question." 
 
 Consumer Bankers Association CEO Richard Hunt was slightly more diplomatic. "We have been through more tests and thorough exams than any college student over the past four years, including many conducted by the CFPB. The results of the Hamilton Partners Financial Index and the testimony of OCC Comptroller [Thomas] Curry were very clear: the United States banking system is safe and sound, supported by historic and permanent capital ratios. We are working every day to fulfill the financial needs of the American consumer and small business and will continue to work with any and all lawmakers who seek to assist in this extremely important process." 
 
 Bankers and other members of the finance community have opposed Warren as she rose from being a Harvard University law school professor to a Massachusetts senator. They opposed her permanent nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she created. After Senate Republicans said that they would filibuster her nomination, she ran for Senate in Massachusetts. Wall Street donated heavily to her opponent, former Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), but she won the seat. Warren became a member of the Senate Banking Committee, despite further heavy opposition from banking lobbyists. 
 
 During the hearing, Warren asked why ordinary people often faced prosecution while banks do not. 
 
 "You know, I just want to note on this. There are district attorneys and U.S. attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds. And taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it. I'm really concerned that too big to fail has become too big for trial," she said. "That just seems wrong to me." 
 
 CORRECTION: A previous version of this story referred to Consumer Bankers Association CEO Richard Hunt by the wrong title. We regret the error.
– Elizabeth Warren has kept a low national profile in her first month on the job as a senator, but that changed yesterday at a hearing in which she grilled federal regulators of Wall Street, reports the Boston Globe and MassLive. In the exchange getting the most attention, Warren noted that civil cases against banks usually end with legal settlements, and asked, "When did you last take ... a large financial institution, a Wall Street bank, to trial?" When nobody spoke up immediately, she asked, "Anybody?" The answers that followed generally danced around the question, but it became clear that banks rarely get prosecuted. "There are district attorneys and US attorneys who are out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it," said Warren. (The Huffington Post notes that Internet activist Aaron Swartz was a Warren constituent before his suicide.) "I've very concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial' and that just seems wrong to me." Many on Wall Street are now accusing her of grandstanding at the hearing, notes a separate HuffPo article.