Ilya Marritz
Ilya Marritz covers business for WNYC.
Brooklyn Congressman Probes NY Fed and AIG
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
New York, NY –
Brooklyn Congressman Edolphus Towns will be in Washington this morning scrutinizing decisions made by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the tumultuous fall of 2008. WNYC's Ilya Marritz says questions persist about how the New York Fed handled the demise of insurance giant AIG.
REPORTER: One question is: Why did government officials agree to pay in full AIG's creditors tens of billions of dollars to erase the company's debts? That money came from taxpayers and critics have called it a "backdoor bailout" for Goldman Sachs and other banks. Congressman Towns' Government Oversight Committee has subpoenaed a quarter of a million documents related to the government's handling of AIG. Staffers say these documents show that mid-level New York Fed officials raised objections to the deal, but in the end the banks did get paid in full.
The hearings kick off today at 10:00 a.m. with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
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