Raw Story | March 24, 2009
By David Edwards

Rep. Maxine Waters (DEM-CA) asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about his connections to Goldman Sachs at a House banking hearing Tuesday morning. Goldman Sachs is known to have received bailout money given to A.I.G. Goldman may have participated in the government decision to provide the original bailout money to A.I.G. 

Geithner told Waters that Goldman Sachs could help manage the new program to help banks remove toxic assets from their books. "It is possible, if they are qualified," he said.

Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson once served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Goldman Sachs, afer working for the firm for decades. 

"Neither did it look good when Geithner — himself a protégé of notorious Goldman alum John Thain, the Merrill Lynch chief who paid out billions in bonuses after the state spent billions bailing out his firm — picked a former Goldman lobbyist named Mark Patterson to be his top aide," writes Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.

In February, Congresswoman Waters received a lot of attention after telling "the heads of J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and five other powerhouses" at a prior House hearing, "To the captains of the universe sitting here before all of us, all of my political life I have been in disagreement with the banking industry."

The Washington Post noted that Waters was "dripping sarcasm from every syllable of 'captains' and 'universe.' Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis attempted a little joke in response, saying, 'I feel like a corporal of the universe.' Stony silence from the seething Waters."

"Lesson to future Hill witnesses: Don't taunt a grouch," Frank Ahrens wrote for the paper. "Especially one with power."