Robert Rubin wins again.
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By John Titus, creator of the new documentary Bailout.
Obama Keeps Top Bailout Recipient Citigroup In Charge Of U.S. Treasury
President Obama has picked former Citigroup executive Jacob Lew to replace Citigroup minion Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary.
“Tim seemed to view his job as protecting Citigroup,” said then-FDIC Chair Sheila Bair.
At Obama's Treasury, the “change you can believe in” is apparent only from the difference in roles played by Lew and Geithner with respect to Citigroup: Lew personally benefited from the corporate welfare lavished on Citigroup in the bailouts that began in 2008, whereas Geithner orchestrated the welfare on Citigroup’s behalf.
For 2008, Lew received an enormous bonus--$944,578--shortly after Citigroup posted a loss of $27 billion that year. Despite the unprecedented size of the loss, Citigroup was able to pay Lew’s bonus because it received $45 billion from the TARP program.
In fairness to the much-maligned TARP bailout, it is unclear whether Citigroup paid Lew’s bonus directly out of the $45,000,000,000.00 check it received from the Treasury as part of that program. That’s because Citigroup also received $2.5 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve—where Tim Geithner worked when the loans began.
The Federal Reserve concealed the loans until a GAO audit forced their disclosure in 2011.
Nor is it clear whether Geithner directed that taxpayers ring-fence $300 billion in Citigroup’s toxic assets as a cushion against Lew’s bonus, which amplified what would have been merely a $27.699 billion loss into the full $27.7 billion loss actually reported by the bank that year.
Whatever the case, Lew felt the $944,578 bonus was enough of an issue that he concealed it from the public until 4 days after filing his ethics disclosure to join the White House.
It would not be the last of Lew's financial disclosure problems, which continued when Lew became Obama's budget director.
"Lew, as the president's budget director, appeared before Congress and continued to insist that President Obama's budget-which Lew had crafted-would not add to the debt of the United States," [Senator] Sessions said.
Historians expect Lew to ascribe blame for his fiscal obfuscation to the popular Turbo Tax software when he appears before the Senate.
If confirmed, Lew would be the most recent additon to a long line of Robert Rubin protégés in the Obama Administration and indeed controlling the White House itself.
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John Titus has practiced law in federal courts for more than 15 years.
Related from Titus:
Why Is The S.E.C. Concealing Massive Citigroup Fraud?
