Feds probe whether Goldman Sachs, other banks 'cooked their books' to get bailout money
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IG Neil Barofsky was surprisingly frank about the probe in an interview with the Financial Times (U.K.), saying, "I hope we don't find a single bank that's cooked their books to try to get money but I don't think that's going to be the case."
Securities fraud, wire fraud, and false statements are "possible lines of inquiry," as the FT puts it, adding:
"We haven't served a single subpoena," he says. The preliminary audit will be published in the next few weeks, after analysis of the "pretty detailed descriptions with what banks say they've done with the money".
One key is how the banks have valued the securities on which they based their pleas for handouts. From the FT story:
Large banks from Citigroup to Goldman Sachs and hundreds of regional banks have taken billions from TARP to rebuild balance sheets weakened by the financial crisis.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Barofsky is also probing complaints flooding in from consumers about the bailed-out banks' hikes in interest rates and fees.
1 comment(s)
What exactly would a bank run look like in 2009?
That's the only reason Obama is seamlessly continuing the selective protection of criminal bankers and mortgage writers and traders, right? To avoid a run on the banks. Or perhaps an outright refusal to pay our mortgages? Or our credit card balances?
Rumors of martial law, along with the inevitable revival of the Jewish banking conspiracy (even though the boys at Goldman Sachs have surnames as Italian as mine), are only encouraged by this subterfuge.
What will happen when people don't get their TANF or food stamp chits on their EBT cards? What happens when folks with unemployment extensions don't see their weekly ACH?
So Mr. Obama is working his hardest to prevent a bank run? Is that what this selective coddling of felons is all about?
Posted On: Monday, Apr. 13 2009 @ 11:08PM