Fox Business Network said Thursday it filed suit against the Treasury Department, seeking to force the agency to turn over information on its bailout deals with American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon.
The network said that the Treasury Department had either rejected its requests for details on the agreements with those companies, or failed to respond to its petitions for expedited disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
"The Treasury has repeatedly ignored our requests for information on how the government is allocating money to these troubled institutions,'' said Kevin Magee, executive vice president of Fox News. "In a critical time like this amidst mounting corruptions and an economic crisis, we as a news organization feel it's more important than ever to hold the government accountable.''
Fox said it wanted Treasury to disclose, among other things, any troubled assets the government purchased as part of the bailout deals, any collateral the companies pledged, and any restrictions placed on the companies for their participation in the program.
The Treasury Department bought $40 billion in newly issued preferred shares of AIG in November as part of an expanded and modified $152.5 billion rescue plan. The deal also included $60 billion in loans and $52.5 billion to purchase troubled assets.
The Treasury Department bought $45 billion of Citigroup's preferred stock, and also agreed to provide guarantees on $306 billion in troubled assets held by the bank. The department invested $3 billion in Bank of N
BailoutSleuth also has filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the Treasury Departments for details of it sagreements with Bank of New York Mellon and five other companies hired as contractors on the TARP program. When the Treasury Department posted the master custodian contract on its web site, it blacked out the amount of money that Bank of New York Mellon would be paid under the agremeent, as well as the section that spelled out how the company's compensation would be calculated.
Bloomberg News has sued the Federal Reserve, seeking access to information about moe than $2 billion in emergency loans to a number of unidentified financial instutitions. Bloomberg sued after its request under the Freedom of Information Act were denied.
A copy of Fox's suit was not immediately available Thursday night.
Gee, the Treasury set up a plan with no transparancy or oversight, then fails to disclose who the money is going to and why?
Shocking!
www.losinggame.com
Don't worry, the transparency will become obvious when the money disappears and there is no recovery.
If our school systems were teaching History and Economics, even at the basic level they were taught at the turn of the century here in the United States, everyone would know that throwing money away was tried by FDR and was the basic reason that the great depression lasted till after WWII.
Every one should know that history and economics are anathema to modern democrats since they interfere with their march toward socialism. Obama is the current typical Harvard, Columbia lawyer. The only thing he knows about the two subjects is the pure Marxist view.
I wonder when he is going to set fire to the Reichstag - er The Congress.
Jack