1.24.2010

Emails Reveal Fed's Bailouts Are Treated as "National Security"

From Reuters via DrudgeReport:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators originally treated the New York Federal Reserve's bid to keep secret many of the details of the American International Group bailout like a request to protect matters of national security, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

[snip]

The new batch of emails, along with others that have become public in recent weeks, reveal that some at the New York Fed had gone to great lengths to keep the terms of the bailout private and the SEC may have played a role in contributing to some of the secrecy surrounding the AIG rescue package.

In another email, a New York Fed official said the SEC suggested in late December 2008, that AIG file the document under seal and then apply to the regulatory agency for so-called confidential treatment, if central bankers wanted to stop the information from becoming public.

The emails were included in the mountain of documents the New York Fed turned over last week to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which will hold a hearing Wednesday into the AIG bailout and the New York Fed's role in trying keep the specific terms of that Fed-engineered rescue in November 2008, from being made public.

"The New York Fed was orchestrating what can only be characterized as an extreme effort to ensure that details of the counterparty deal stayed secret," Rep. Darrell Issa from California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said through a spokesman. "More and more it looks as if they would've kept the details of the deal secret indefinitely, it they could have."

[snip]
But this latest round of emails reveals that it was an official with the SEC in December 2008 who recommended that AIG and the New York Fed could seek confidential treatment for the Schedule A document as an alternative to making the entire document public.

[snip]
The emails also discuss that BusinessWeek magazine had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the document and the confidential treatment request was a way of dealing with that and other possible requests by the media for the document.

3 comments:

arnel said...

wow great hblog i like your story..

Independent Accountant said...

Sid:
I've been following this story closely. All parties involved should be indicted for securities fraud. What, SEC officials too? Them especially! There's more to this story than you see as it shows the SEC's real modus operandi.

IA

John Enright said...

Then why do I feel less secure?

Happy Super Tuesday!