Goldman's White House Connections Raise Eyebrows

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Thursday, April 22, 2010 by McClatchy Newspapers

Goldman's White House Connections Raise Eyebrows

by Greg Gordon

WASHINGTON — While Goldman Sachs' lawyers negotiated with the Securities and Exchange Commission over potentially explosive civil fraud charges, Goldman's chief executive visited the White House at least four times.

White House logs show that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein traveled to Washington for at least two events with President Barack Obama, whose 2008 presidential campaign received $994,795 in donations from Goldman's political action committee, its employees and their relatives. He also met twice with Obama's top economic adviser, Larry Summers.

No evidence has surfaced to suggest that Blankfein or any other Goldman executive raised the SEC case with the president or his aides. SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said in a statement Wednesday that the SEC doesn't coordinate enforcement actions with the White House or other political bodies.

Meanwhile, however, Goldman is retaining former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig as a member of its legal team. In addition, when he worked as an investment banker in Chicago a decade ago, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel advised one client who also retained Goldman as an adviser on the same $8.2 billion deal.

Goldman's connections to the White House and the Obama administration are raising eyebrows at a time when Washington and Wall Street are dueling over how to overhaul regulation of the financial world.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/22-4

[notesdev]

1. We are watching a practiced charade

Wall St. gets flayed in public in order to pass a bill, masquerading as reform, that was written to advantage Wall St.

I wonder how many people will fall for it?

[IndianaGreen]

2. Beaucoup people will fall for it

just as they did for the Health Insurance Reform that enshrined in federal law the monopoly of the health insurance industry.

Faith-based politics!

[progressoid]

5. Faith-based politics

Yep - That about sums it up for some people.

[amborin]

3. quite a few it seems

[Smashcut]

6. +1000

[BrklynLiberal]

4. These "connections" were being questioned on Huff Post back in June of 09

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/government-sachs-goldmans_n_210561.html

[amborin]

7. and by Mother Jones

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/henhouse-meet-fox-wall-street-washington-obama

[yurbud]

8. these connections were disturbing when he appointed Goldman execs to run econ policy

[yurbud]

9. Obama met with Goldman execs more than public option or single payer advocates

and appointed far more of them to his cabinet.