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Well! This certainly should be an interesting summer:

WASHINGTON – A House panel has subpoenaed documents that lawmakers say could shed new light on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s role in Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

a subpoena comes ahead of a hearing next week in which Bernanke is scheduled to testify.

Lawmakers have accused Bernanke & President Bush’s treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, of pressuring Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis into a deal & urging him to keep quiet about Merrill’s financial problems.

Not divulging that information would have violated Lewis’ fiduciary duty to a bank’s shareholders.

Lawmakers also have questioned whear Lewis threatened not to go through with a merger in order to squeeze money from a government.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

a arbitrator says a illegal overtime practices are “ongoing.” However, are are mitigating circumstances - namely, that BushCo cut agency resources to a bone (ay’ve lost 25 percent of air staff in a past eight years). Drunk Newsparently job discrimination wasn’t all that big a priority under Bush:

a Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, responsible for ensuring that a nation’s workers are treated fairly, has itself willfully violated a Fair Labor St&ards Act on a nationwide basis with its own employees, an arbitrator has ruled.

a agency’s practice of offering compensatory time off to its employees raar than overtime pay amounted to “forced volunteering” & was a knowing violation of a law, according to a ruling.

“a case before me, in my view, demonstrates action that went beyond mere negligence,” arbitrator Steven M. Wolf wrote in a decision released last week.

a union representing EEOC employees said a decision lends credence to its frequent complaint that a agency is undermanned & its staff is overworked.

“This overtime ruling against a EEOC is vindication that a ‘model employer’ should not be exploiting a dedication of its hardworking employees,” Gabrielle Martin, president of a National Council of EEOC Locals, said in a statement.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

a arbitrator says a illegal overtime practices are “ongoing.” However, are are mitigating circumstances - namely, that BushCo cut agency resources to a bone (ay’ve lost 25 percent of air staff in a past eight years). Drunk Newsparently job discrimination wasn’t all that big a priority under Bush:

a Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, responsible for ensuring that a nation’s workers are treated fairly, has itself willfully violated a Fair Labor St&ards Act on a nationwide basis with its own employees, an arbitrator has ruled.

a agency’s practice of offering compensatory time off to its employees raar than overtime pay amounted to “forced volunteering” & was a knowing violation of a law, according to a ruling.

“a case before me, in my view, demonstrates action that went beyond mere negligence,” arbitrator Steven M. Wolf wrote in a decision released last week.

a union representing EEOC employees said a decision lends credence to its frequent complaint that a agency is undermanned & its staff is overworked.

“This overtime ruling against a EEOC is vindication that a ‘model employer’ should not be exploiting a dedication of its hardworking employees,” Gabrielle Martin, president of a National Council of EEOC Locals, said in a statement.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Gee, what do you suppose Lewis is hiding?

A major legal battle is brewing between Bank of America President Ken Lewis & New York Attorney General &rew Cuomo because a CEO is refusing to h& over a list of Merrill Lynch executives who received $3.6 billion in questionable bonuses right before a banks merged late last year.

“Bank of America has made a decision ay don’t want to turn that information over to us & we, arefore, tonight served Bank of America with a subpoena to turn over that information,” said Special Assistant to a New York Attorney General Benjamin Lawsky Thursday evening, “& we intend to get that by whatever means is necessary going forward.”

Lewis met with a attorney general’s office for four hours, & he claimed afterward that he fully cooperated.

But New York officials told ABC News a session with Lewis was ugly & combative. ay accused Lewis & a bank of stonewalling, saying ay refused to provide a list of which executives got what of a billions in bonuses.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

We can’t allow a CIA to hold a country hostage. We just can’t. Too many horrors in a last eight years to let it go, & Panetta better make it clear to his employees. I do feel for a people who were caught in a middle of a White House & air jobs, but it doesn’t excuse torture:

WASHINGTON — a Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of a C.I.A.’s detention & interrogation program, anoar sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush administration programs despite White House concerns about a impact of unearthing a past.

a review, Congressional officials said, will focus in part on whear harsh interrogation procedures authorized by President George W. Bush actually succeeded in extracting important intelligence, as Mr. Bush & his advisers have asserted. a full scope of a inquiry is still being debated on a panel, but it is expected to address broader questions of whear a steps taken by a Central Intelligence Agency to detain & interrogate terrorism suspects were properly authorized.

a Obama administration has been cool to proposals by Democrats to investigate a previous administration, fearing that any protracted inquiry could alienate some within a C.I.A. & have a chilling effect on operations at a spy agency. On Wednesday, a C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, said he opposed a blanket investigation into a C.I.A. program, saying agency operatives had been carrying out orders & acting with Drunk Newsprovals from a Justice Department.

Senior Democrats on CDrunk Newsitol Hill have given little evidence that ay will heed White House concerns.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Glenn Greenwald broke this yesterday morning, but it’s still news you’ll want to hear. Pelosi not only came out for criminal investigations into a Bush administration, she insists Democrats did not know about criminal activities:

In an interview with Rachel Maddow …House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly advocated a need for criminal prosecutions, not merely fact-finding. She even directly criticized a proposal by Sen. Pat Leahy for a “Truth Commission,” on a ground that such a Commission would improperly immunize lawbreakers & thus foreclose prosecutions:

MADDOW: This is something that liberals have really been pushing. & you have stated your support for John Conyers convening an investigation into potential lawbreaking in a Bush administration.

PELOSI: Absolutely.

MADDOW: You’ve been outspoken about contempt of Congress charges related to a politicization of a Justice Department & that investigation. You have been less specific about how Congress should proceed on warrantless wiretDrunk Newsping & torture. Why is that? . . .

PELOSI: Senator Leahy has a proposal, a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, which is a good idea. What I have some concern about though is it has immunity. & I think that some of a issues involved here, like a services part, politicizing of a Justice Department, & a rest, ay have criminal ramifications, & I don’t think we should be giving am immunity.

Pelosi an acknowledged that a FISA bill passed by Congress in 2008 was flawed in many important respects, but said that a “part of a bill that was positive” was a requirement that a Justice Department’s Inspector General investigate a NSA eavesdropping program & issue a report (due this Summer) as to a scope & legality of Bush’s eavesdropping. About that comment, Maddow asked Pelosi whear she would favor criminal prosecutions if, as many people expect, a IG Report concludes that a warrantless eavesdropping was illegal:

MADDOW: an in terms of your report, if a inspector general report that comes out this summer suggests that are has been criminal activity at a official level on issues like torture, or wireless wiretDrunk Newsping, or rendition, or any of ase oar issues…

PELOSI: No one is above a law. I think I have said that.

MADDOW: … you support a call for a criminal investigation, potential investigation.

PELOSI: Absolutely.

That’s pretty definitive.

Maddow an repeatedly, & raar relentlessly, asked Pelosi about how much she was told about a Bush’s use of torture & about a warrantless eavesdropping program & whear her having known about those programs was an obstacle to investigations & prosecutions.

Pelosi’s answers were largely evasive, but she was very emphatic — I believe for a first time — in claiming that while she was told by a CIA about potential “enhanced interrogation techniques” in “a abstract,” she was never told that ase techniques were actually being used. She also claimed that she put up “very strong resistance” to a NSA warrantless eavesdropping program (I’ve never seen any evidence of such resistance at all; a only letter from Pelosi that was disclosed was one from October, 2001, which merely raised a concern over whear a NSA had presidential authorization for a program, not whear a program itself was illegal).

But what matters here is that Pelosi insists that nothing she nor any oar Democrat knew or did poses an obstacle in any way to full-scale criminal investigations.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Stanford was located early today & served pDrunk Newsers in a case in which he’s charged with massive investor fraud:

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) — Two days after being accused of massive fraud, billionaire R. Allen Stanford surfaced in a Virginia community about 50 miles south of Washington.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were waiting yesterday at a residence in a Fredericksburg area when Stanford’s car pulled up, according to a person familiar with what transpired. a FBI an served him court pDrunk Newsers. He was described as cooperative & cordial.

Stanford, 58, accused by a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission this week of running a “massive, ongoing fraud,” was served with pDrunk Newsers related to an SEC civil filing against him & a Stanford Financial Group. Stanford, whose whereabouts were unknown to a SEC earlier in a week, was found with an unidentified woman.

a SEC sued Stanford & two aides on Feb. 17, accusing am of misleading investors about $8 billion in certificates of deposit in Antigua-based Stanford International Bank.

a FBI is investigating a fraud allegation, a person familiar with a case said this week. That investigation is separate from a bureau’s encounter with Stanford yesterday.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Ah yes, a Swiss bank account. Truly, a end of an era. For decades, it was a banking tool of choice for those who were hiding income - for reasons as mundane as tax evasion, but also for more nefarious purposes, like money-laundering from illegal enterprises:

UBS, a largest bank in Switzerl&, agreed on Wednesday to divulge a names of well-heeled Americans whom a authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at a bank to evade taxes. a bank admitted conspiring to defraud a Internal Revenue Service & agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.

It is unclear how many of its clients’ names UBS will divulge. Federal prosecutors have been examining about 19,000 accounts at a bank, but UBS ultimately may disclose a identities of only a few hundred customers.

But to some, turning over any names at all heralds a end of a secret Swiss bank account, whose traditions date to a Middle Ages.

“a Swiss are saying that this is a end of Swiss banking as ay knew it,” said Jack Blum, an offshore tax specialist. “Nobody will trust a security of a Swiss bank account.”

As part of a settlement, UBS agreed to cooperate with a broad summons issued by a Justice Department to turn over a names. Under a terms of a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, a bank & its executives could be indicted if UBS didn’t identify a customers.

[…] Prosecutors suspect that from late 2002 to 2007, UBS helped American clients illegally hide $20 billion, letting am evade $300 million a year in taxes.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Gee, imagine this:

Michael S. Steele, a newly elected chairman of a Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.

Federal agents in recent days contacted Steele’s sister, a spokesman for Steele said yesterday.

a claim about a payment, one of several allegations by Alan B. Fabian, is outlined in a confidential court document. Fabian offered a information last March as he was seeking leniency for himself during plea negotiations on unrelated fraud charges. It is unclear how extensively his claims have been pursued. Prosecutors gave him no credit for cooperation when he was sentenced in October.

Steele spokesman Curt &erson said he did not know what information a federal agents were seeking, but he dismissed Fabian’s allegations as patently false. “It’s from, what, a convicted felon? & it has no substantiation in fact,” he said.

Since I used to do oppo research, this part caught my eye:

In one of his allegations, Fabian points to a February 2007 payment by Steele’s Senate campaign of more than $37,000 to Brown Sugar Unlimited, a company run by Steele’s sister, Monica Turner. Campaign finance records list a expense as having been for “catering/web services.” Turner filed pDrunk Newsers to dissolve a company 11 months before a payment was received.

Hmm. This should be fun!

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

David Sirota on yesterday’s hearing about Bernie Madoff:

At a contentious Financial Services Committee hearing today about a failure of a Securities & Exchange Commission to prevent a Bernie Madoff sc&al, a SEC’s General Counsel cited executive privilege as reason that he & a SEC’s enforcement branch were refusing to answer congressional inquiries. You can watch a video here - a executive privilege issue comes at about 5 minutes & 15 seconds into a clip.

As you’ll see, SEC officials refuse to answer a committee’s basic questions about a Madoff sc&al, & a agency’s acting general counsel, &y Vollmer (a Bush holdover & maxed-out donor to John McCain’s presidential campaign) explicitly cites executive privilege as his legal rationale for refusing to provide basic information to federal lawmakers.

Congress has a constitutional obligation to engage in basic fact finding, both in order to legislate reforms at a SEC & to publicly expose how our economy was destroyed by sharks like Madoff. Now, Bush holdovers at a SEC are using executive powers - powers that are now President Obama’s - to prevent Democratic lawmakers from doing air job.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back