Connecting the dots.
Submitted by Brendan Fischer
In the Center for Media and Democracy's
break-through article on the American Action Network, we highlighted the resumes of the billionaires, corporate executives, and right-wing political operatives behind the group. Americans have a right to know more about who these guys really are, starting with AAN board member Robert Steel.
A few weeks ago, we broke the story of the grossly misleading American Action Network attack ad accusing Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold of creating the federal deficit. We pointed out how such claims are preposterous considering that those behind AAN and the anti-Feingold ads helped destroy the economy, and that some of AAN's board members benefited personally from the Wall Street bailout spearheaded by the Bush Administration. The DC-based group, a 501(c) organization that receives anonymous corporate funding, has already spent $750,000 attacking Senator Feingold in television ads. Now, AAN is at it again, airing
another misleading attack ad making similar claims.
AAN board member Robert Steel demonstrates this group's level of sleaze. Steel was Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs for 30 years, where he profited from the kind of gambling that crashed our economy (although he bailed out before the crash). He left Sachs to help Henry Paulson mismanage the then-looming financial crisis at the U.S. treasury, heading next to Wachovia Bank, where his Treasury connections no doubt helped ease its merger with Wells Fargo, which then accepted $25 billion in taxpayer-funded TARP dollars as part of consuming Steel's toxic Wachovia corporation.
The Revolving Door...After 30 years at Goldman Sachs, Steel followed fellow Sachs-alumni Henry Paulson to George W. Bush's Treasury Department, being appointed Under Secretary for Domestic Finance. (Just before joining Treasury, Steel also
served as co-chair of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "committee on capital market regulations," the powerful corporate-funded lobbying group's anti-regulatory crusade). Paulson and Steel were old friends, and had a "
Batman-and-Robin-like relationship," according to the Washington Post. Steel worked in Treasury from 2006-2008, then bailed just as the economy collapsed from he and Paulson’s under-regulation of banks and corporations.
Steel worked on a variety of major projects at Treasury, including the bailout of Bear Stearns. When Wachovia picked Steel as their CEO,
many on the inside were amazed -- it was rather shameless that, in the midst of a financial crisis, a bank would select as CEO the government’s bailout negotiator. But, it just shows the revolving door between government and Wall Street (which leads to the policy failures affecting America's Main Streets).
Steel's Wachovia Jaw-Dropping PrioritiesSoon after Steel took the helm, Wachovia appeared ready to collapse. The bank began freezing customer’s assets (including those of schools) and refusing credit to small businesses. However, in the midst of this apparent crisis, Wachovia still found it feasible to extend an
$8 million loan to the National Republican Congressional Committee to help Republican candidates in the final weeks of the 2008 elections (despite the fact that the NRCC had not proven to be a reliable creditor in the past).
The story gets worse. By September, Wachovia was so close to failure that the U.S. government’s Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC) intervened to negotiate a Wachovia buyout. After a week of negotiations (during which time the government extended Wachovia a line of credit to keep it alive) Citigroup was prepared to purchase Wachovia at the rock-bottom price of $1 per share, after Wells Fargo had rejected the chance to purchase the firm. Steel had recently purchased one million Wachovia shares in a ploy to show his commitment to the company, so a sale at such a low purchase price would have really hurt his pocketbook.
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