Video: Former SEC Chair Harvey Pitt, Senator Maria Cantwell & Dylan Ratigan -- November 2
Member of the Finance Committee, Senator Maria Cantwell followed up her editorial on Wall Street's capture of Washington with an appearance yesterday on Morning Meeting. Considering that Ratigan had Tim Geithner on the lobe for most of the day, you can imagine what happened. Dylan Thomas Jefferson went straight for Geithner's Goldman-jaundiced jugular.
Ratigan:
- "Knowing two massive exemptions in the piece of legislation the Secretary endorsed yesterday on 'Meet the Press' ... why does Tim Geithner still have a job?"
Senator Cantwell:
- "I'm not sure. What the Treasury secretary basically said was that, yes, banks should take more risks and we should continue the loopholes. And that's really appalling because right now, we know that lack of transparency has caused this problem with the U.S. economy, and Wall Street is continuing, one year later, with the same loopholes."
And within 3 hours, Cantwell's Senate staff was forced to issue a disclaimer, likely after a call from Rahm Emmanuel and Lloyd Blankfein.
From The Hill
- Cantwell's friendly fire marks an uptick in rhetoric against Geithner from liberal Democrats, who earlier this year had questioned the former New York Fed chairman's closeness to Wall Street and are now ramping up their questions for the Treasury secretary as Congress prepares to take up the Obama administration's financial overhaul plans in earnest.
- "If the Treasury secretary doesn't come down hard against these loopholes and advocate for closing them, we're going to have a hard time closing them in Congress," Cantwell said. "So the Treasury secretary is dodging the issue."Update, 2:40 p.m.: A spokeswoman for Cantwell says the senator is not willing to go so far as to call for Geithner to step down at this point.
- She accused Geithner of being an "enabler" of the financial crisis in the past, and said the Treasury secretary was building a "house of cards" in the future.
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(MSNBC version in case the youtube video is pulled later.)
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