Neil Barofsky -- SIGTARP, special
inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout
--
yesterday testified on Capitol Hill:
The Treasury Department took a bipartisan beating on Tuesday from
lawmakers who claim the agency has failed to live up to its
promises of transparency in handling the federal rescue of the
financial system.
"The taxpayers now have a $700 billion spending program that's
being run under the philosophy of 'don't ask, don't tell,' " Rep.
Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.) said during a hearing on the Troubled
Assets Relief Program, or TARP.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) went as far as to compare the
Treasury's refusal to provide regular updates on how TARP money
is being spent to the way convicted Ponzi scheme mastermind
Bernard L. Madoff misled his clients. . . .
The antipathy during Tuesday's hearing of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform was provoked by a report issued
earlier this week by Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general
for TARP, in which he repeated calls for the Treasury to require
regular, more detailed information from banks about their use of
bailout funds. . . .
Barofsky also said Tuesday that his office was conducting 35
ongoing criminal and civil investigations as of June 30, covering
topics from accounting and securities fraud to insider trading.
"Really, almost any kind of white collar crime you can think of,"
he said.
Thirty-five separate investigations! No wonder the
Treasury department is trying to prevent Barofsky from getting
the documents he has subpoenaed. The independence of these
watchdogs is
what Gerald Walpin says this fight is all about:
"For a second I was thinking, 'Why do I need all of this?' I'll
just resign and go back to my good legal practice in New York,"
Gerald Walpin told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News"
radio show Tuesday.
"But I would then be part of the apparatus that is totally
torpedoing the inspectors general," Mr. Walpin said. "The
watchdog would not really be a watchdog. He'd just be afraid of
his shadow." . . .
More at Memeorandum.
