AIG has responded to the letter from Rep. Ed Towns requesting information about the company’s PR expenses, that we first reported on yesterday — and which has now been picked up by Reuters, Bloomberg, and ABC News, among others.
Here’s the statement they sent us:
In more than 30 media appearances since the beginning of the year and elsewhere, Mr. Greenberg and his lawyers have made false and misleading statements about AIG, including his role in creating AIG Financial Products and its credit default swap business, as well as the circumstances surrounding his forced departure from AIG during an accounting fraud investigation. We look forward to providing Congressman Towns with background on why it has been necessary to correct these and other misstatements, which are both misleading to the American public and damaging to AIG and its ability to repay taxpayers.This issue is not about AIG’s corporate public relations expenditures, which are down sharply since last year. It is about correcting Mr. Greenberg’s false and damaging statements.
Asked to clarify whether this meant that AIG intended to give Towns everything he’s asking for, spokesman Nicholas Ashooh responded, via email:
The point about “background” is that, in addition to responding to Rep. Towns’ questions, we will explain why it is important for AIG to correct Mr. Greenberg’s false and misleading statements, which, as the statement says, are damaging to AIG and our ability to repay taxpayers.
So that would seem to be a yes, but we’ll have to see what happens.