Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo demanded in a rare joint letter today, per the AP, that Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis “immediately disclose details about individual bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch & Co. employees in December.” The letter can be found here, on A.G. Cuomo’s Web site. Cuomo and Frank curtly conclude:
Your refusal to reveal compensation information fuels distrust and cynicism at a most sensitive time.
As I wrote on Saturday, Cuomo doesn’t stop once he has picked a target. The end result may not be ideal, but he will take action and make his point known. Well known. His teaming up with Frank constitutes extraordinarily unusual state-federal cooperation that has to be sending a pretty strong message to Lewis that This. Is. Not. Going. Away.
Your move, Mr. Lewis.
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Meanwhile, in a somewhat related vein, some transparency was given today about the most recent AIG bailout. In a memo obtained by ABC News today, AIG threatened that “potentially catastrophic unforeseen consequences” could result if it failed and, thus, if the government failed to bail it out — again. The memo, presumably, is the reason behind the additional funding given to AIG on March 2.
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Chris Geidner is the senior political writer at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found