Liddy Testified that most of Congress knew before Geithner about the Bonuses, didn't he?

[Mike 03]

I watched all six hours (plus the one hour recess) of the hearing yesterday.

This is what I heard him testify to:

1. He assumed his role as emergency CEO of AIG after it was rescued in Fall 2008.
2. He learned of the existence of the bonus issue in December.
3. This was not a secret; it was vetted by the SEC and included in the 10K and quarterly reports.
4. Liddy's staff informed the staff of all congresspeople of the bonus issue, which apparently, judging from the ignorance of the committee members yesterday, they paid absolutely no attention to, and they apparently entirely ignored the requisite SEC filings made by AIG.

5. Geithner only was informed of the bonuses TWO WEEKS AGO and he promptly ordered a meeting with the relevant parties, including Liddy, which only transpired ONE week ago.

This is the thing I'm waiting for: Liddy was specifically asked to provide the names of all the Congresspeople who were apprised of the bonus situation in December of 2008, and he said there are plenty of them.

We will learn finally how damned little these politicians care about getting the details right before they blast off their fucking mouths at circuses like we had yesterday.

The people on this committee didn't know anything because they chose not to pay attention to information that was publicly available to EVERYONE--you and me and anyone with an internet connection--as far back as Q4 2008. Not only was this information publicly available, but they and their staff members were purposefully apprised of it and they chose to ignore it and pretend that they just learned of it "48 hours ago."

This is not a Tim Geithner or a Bernanke problem. This is just another case of "most of our politicians we entrust with investigating particular issues suck." And that goes for the finance committee, for certain.

ON EDIT

And if case anyone is going to ask, rhetorically, "Why didn't Geithner know, or care enough to know?", my answer is: It's more important to prevent a global multi-trillion dollar meltdown than to mircomanage a pathetic situation like who is getting bonuses at AIG. If you have a mosquito and a cougar in your bedroom, and both of them are trying to kill you, which one do you focus on?

[spanone]

1. k&r

so congress knew BEFORE geithner

[bbinacan]

2. Great post! n/t

[zbdent]

3. So, if Congress knew ...

why didn't the ReRushlicans scream about it then?

[spanone]

4. because they didn't give a shit about it then or now...they just want a wedge on the dems

[Traveling_Home]

5. Go to the Source - What did Geitner say? nt

[frazzled]

6. The interesting part that I heard was the Fed being in on the decision, Treasury and Kanjorski not

This occurred early on, in questioning from chairman Kanjorski and the Republican Scott Garrett.

Kanjorski was pissed because he said he had been urging him to suppress the payments. Then they were distributed on a Saturday night. Liddy said they had been working with the Fed (i.e., Bernanke) on this. Kanjorski was angry at not being informed. Garrett tried to drag Geithner in, but Liddy reiterated that he had worked only with Fed. Didn't the Fed tell Geithner about this all along? Not to Liddy's knowledge.

There's a sort of half-transcript of some of this discussion (poorly analyzed, however) here:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/18/financial-services-aig-hearing-panel-2-liddy/

The real problem we are having with this is that we are failing to separate out the general question of Treasury's involvement in the general question of legal problems with abrogating prior signed contracts and the specific question of AIG actually paying out on these contracts. The impression I got, especially from Kanjorski's statements, and Dodd's and Geithners of yesterday/today is that: there was some feeling there was a problem in the government actually legislating the breaking of a contract, but that they were hoping to work behind the scenes to convince the management to supress the payments themselves. This is where Geithner (and Kanjorski) seems to have been left out of the loop until late.