Bipartisan Oversight Members Threaten Subpoena For AIG Mole Reports
The top Democrat and Republican on the House oversight committee jointly threatened the Department of Justice (PDF) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (PDF) with subpoenas if they don't hand over the AIG mole's reports by Thursday, April 30th.
The letters, provided to the Huffington Post, are dated April 27th and demand all reports written by or relating to James Cole, who was assigned by the government as part of a deferred prosecution agreement to sit in on board meetings at AIG and otherwise monitor AIG while it collapsed. (A word on terminology: He has been referred to as the "AIG mole" in numerous media reports - but as HuffPost readers have noted in the past, he wasn't technically a mole since AIG was fully aware of his government affiliation.)
Cole's reports of AIG activity are confidential, but now that AIG has cratered and the government owns roughly 80 percent of it, the argument for keeping them private is tougher to make, say lawmakers. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Ed Towns (D-N.Y.) and the committee's top-ranking Republican, Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), cite the 80 percent stake in their letter.
The wording of the letter stops just short of promising a subpoena, but rather informs the DOJ and SEC that the pair will be "forced to consider" one if the agencies don't comply.
"The Federal investment in AIG now exceeds $180 billion and there may be future AIG demands for even more Federal money. Under these circumstances, failure to comply with the Committee's request for the Cole reports raises the prospect that we will be forced to consider compulsory means to achieve compliance," they write.
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April 28, 2009 08:53 AM