Timothy Geithner

NY Fed: Geithner Wasn't Involved In AIG Disclosures Issues

Zachary Roth | January 8, 2010, 5:02PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

The New York Fed says Tim Geithner wasn't involved in the New York Fed's late 2008 effort to press AIG to avoid disclosing information about its bailout funds.

A Fed lawyer said in a statement:

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Barney Frank

Frank Supports Hearings On Fed-AIG Emails

Zachary Roth | January 8, 2010, 12:08PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

Momentum is building for hearings on what Tim Geithner knew and when he knew it about the New York Fed's effort to press AIG to keep secret details of its massive federal bailout.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who chairs the House Financial Services committee, told BusinessWeek: "To the extent that there were problems in that AIG situation, we have taken steps to prevent their occurrence."

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Joe Arpaio

Grand Jury Convened In Arpaio Probe, Say Officials

Zachary Roth | January 8, 2010, 9:06AM

Sheriff Joe Arpaio

U.S. prosecutors have convened a grand jury as part of their investigation into abuses by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, two county officials say -- a sign that the probe may be kicking into a higher gear.

Maricopa County Manager David Smith and Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson said last night they had been subpoenaed to testify next week before the panel. Both have clashed with Arpaio.

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AIG

Emails: Fed Pressed AIG To Keep Bailout Details Under Wraps

Zachary Roth | January 7, 2010, 2:58PM

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

The New York Fed pressured AIG in late 2008 to withhold from the public details about its massive and controversial payments to counter-parties, according to emails obtained by Bloomberg News. At the time, Timothy Geithner, now the Treasury Secretary, was New York Fed chair.

The federal government was heavily criticized last year for what some lawmakers have called a "backdoor bailout" of several large banks. It spent $182 billion all told to bail out AIG, but directed that the troubled insurance giant use those funds to pay back its counter-parties -- including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, DeutscheBank, and other major banks -- with whom it had engaged in credit default swaps.

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U.S. Attorneys

Figures In U.S. Attorney Firings Now Running For Office

Zachary Roth | January 7, 2010, 2:02PM

Tim Griffin

Who ever said there are no second acts in American life never met some of the Republicans who played roles in the U.S. attorney firings.

Three figures from the Bush Justice Department scandal of 2006 are back in the limelight, running for office under the GOP banner in 2010.

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Republicans For Choice

Report: Pro-Choice GOP PAC Spends Little To Elect Pro-Choice GOPers

Zachary Roth | January 7, 2010, 11:11AM

Ann Stone of Republicans for Choice

The number of pro-choice Republicans in Congress today is tiny and getting tinier.

There are a few reasons for that, but here's one you likely weren't aware of: According to a detailed new investigative report, the best-known organization working to get pro-choice GOPers elected to Congress actually spends very little of its budget doing so.

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Doug Domenech

Bush Interior Official To Run Virginia Natural Resources Department

Zachary Roth | January 6, 2010, 6:12PM

Doug Domenech

Virginia governor-elect Bob McDonnell has named to his cabinet a Bush administration official who, according to one former colleague, took direction from Team Abramoff.

McDonnell, a Republican, announced today that Doug Domenech will be his secretary of natural resources.

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American Future Fund

Shadowy Conservative Group Still Working To Undermine Robocall Laws

Zachary Roth | January 6, 2010, 2:37PM

Despite setbacks, a shadowy conservative group isn't backing off its bid to undermine state restrictions on political robocalls, as it gears up to unleash a barrage of such calls in 2010 races.

In October, as we reported, the American Future Fund Political Action (AFFPA) argued in a brief to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that state laws restricting robocalls are pre-empted by a more lenient federal law. AFFPA informed the FEC that it planned to make such calls in Congressional races this fall.

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Wall Street

New Dems Met With Wall St. Execs While Pushing to Weaken Financial Reform

Zachary Roth | January 6, 2010, 12:45PM

New Democrat Coalition chair Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY)

A group of moderate Democrats held private meetings this fall with executives from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, while in the midst of pushing successfully to water down landmark legislation designed to beef up regulation of the financial industry.

In mid October, members of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a caucus of pro-business Democrats, traveled to New York City. According to an emailed itinerary for the trip drawn up by an event planner working for the group and obtained by TPMmuckraker, members met on October 12 with executives from Goldman, and the following day with execs from JP Morgan. Sandwiched between those events was a fundraiser for the New Dems, and a meeting with CEOs from Marsh and McLellan Companies, a consulting and insurance firm.

[SEE THE ITINERARY EMAIL HERE. SEE AN INVITATION FOR THE FUNDRAISER HERE]

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voter fraud

Conservative Recall Effort Leads To Voter Fraud Charges

Zachary Roth | January 5, 2010, 5:47PM

Not all voter fraud can be pinned on ACORN.

Two Michigan men were recently charged with voter fraud. The men, Michael Bastianelli and Harvey Robinson, allegedly faked signatures that were used to get a recall petition on the ballot.

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Allen Stanford

A Washington Tale: As Feds Closed In, Stanford Boosted Efforts To Buy Influence

Zachary Roth | January 5, 2010, 2:00PM

Allen Stanford

As the federal government closed in on Allen Stanford in 2008, he began desperately pulling out all the stops in a bid to stay one step ahead. The Texas banker launched his own in-house lobbying shop, run by a former top aide to a powerful congressman. And he hired a former Clinton administration PR specialist to aggressively deflect reporters looking into his financial empire.

The Stanford story, of course, is primarily about how a high-living tycoon used a Caribbean tax shelter to allegedly orchestrate a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. But it's also an object lesson in how Washington works: How wealthy and powerful people can buy a level of influence and access that allows them to play by a different set of rules. In Stanford's case, that only worked for so long. But it's not hard to see how he could have thought playing the Beltway influence game might be his salvation.

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Anthrax

2001 Redux? Anthrax Scares Follow Terror Plot

Zachary Roth | January 5, 2010, 10:06AM

Yesterday -- ten days after the failed Christmas bombing attempt -- there were anthrax scares in both Alabama and California.

Envelopes containing white powder were sent to the district offices of senators and congressmen, as well as to a federal courthouse, in five different Alabama cities, and were believed to come from the same source. None of the letters tested positive for anthrax or any other harmful substance.

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Carlos Loumiet

Stanford's Lawyer Played Key Role In Shielding Banker From Scrutiny

Zachary Roth | January 4, 2010, 12:01PM

Allen Stanford

We told you earlier today about Yolanda Suarez, the Florida lawyer who forged ties with members of Congress and ran interference with journalists on behalf of Allen Stanford. But it's also worth paying attention to another Florida lawyer and key Stanford ally, who appears to have played an equally crucial role in allowing the Texas banker -- who was charged in June with orchestrating a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme -- to stay a step ahead of the government for so long.

As Stanford's lawyer of choice, Carlos Loumiet helped set up the unusual regulatory arrangement that allowed the Stanford Financial Group (SFG) to move hundreds of millions of dollars from Florida to Antigua with little scrutiny. Soon afterwards, he served on a Stanford-funded task-force to rewrite Antigua's banking laws -- an effort that U.S. regulators have said left major loopholes and hindered efforts to crack down on fraud. And the court-appointed receiver seeking to unravel Stanford's far-flung financial empire has demanded that the two law firms that have employed Loumiet -- who hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing -- hand over records of their work on behalf of Stanford.

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TSA

TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers

Zachary Roth | January 4, 2010, 9:13AM

Security at the Denver airport.

The Transportation Security Administration seems to have had second thoughts about those subpoenas it issued to two bloggers in an attempt to find out who leaked the agency's new security directive, issued in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing attack.

On Friday evening, a TSA spokeswoman sent out the following statement:

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Yolanda Suarez

Top Stanford Aide Schmoozed Lawmakers, Sweet-Talked Journos

Zachary Roth | January 4, 2010, 8:33AM

Yolanda Suarez and Allen Stanford

In the late nineties, Douglas Farah, at the time a reporter for the Washington Post, was looking into a then-obscure Antigua-based businessman who had played a key role in helping the island nation rewrite its banking laws, frustrating U.S. efforts to crack down on money laundering.

Farah's reporting suggested that Allen Stanford wielded surprising influence in the Antiguan government. And Farah was hearing that the Texas-born billionaire and his company, the Stanford Financial Group (SFG), had ties to Latin American drug money.

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