from the Working Life blog:
Carl Levin: Keep Heat On Goldman Sachsby Jonathan Tasini
Thursday 19 of May, 2011
I think Carl Levin knows the dance underway. His investigation into the financial meltdown is over. He has forwarded his findings to the Justice Department for civil or criminal action. And, now, I suspect he thinks there will be an attempt to bury the whole mess--and the specific role Goldman Sachs played in the scams that crashed the economy. So, Levin is keeping the heat on.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Levin says he has "real hope" that the government will pursue accusations that Goldman Sachs mislead investors and Congress:
Mr Levin added to that in an interview with the Financial Times on the Senate report, which examined Wall Street practices in the run-up to the crisis. The senator was confident officials were taking it seriously. “There’s real hope here that there’s going to be a good scrub by a number of law enforcement entities, so I am not pessimistic about this.”
The senator said Goldman’s payment of $550m to settle fraud allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the marketing of one structured debt product did not preclude other allegations. He said Goldman executives misled his committee but suggested they might have stopped short of lies with “wiggle words”.
“They obviously spent a lot of time parsing words,” he said, adding he was “not going to judge whether they committed perjury”(emphasis added).
Two points. As I see it, a veteran lawmaker like Levin, who knows how Washington works, does not go public with an interview in the Financial Times if he isn't concerned. It is pretty typical Washington-speak to say something along the lines that you are confident action is going to be taken--when you are not, and thus you take it public in a high-profile arena. ...........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=15183
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