US Treasury secretary says he had no choice in AIG bailout
House of Representatives Oversight Committee chairman Edolphus Towns has said US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will testify about insurer AIG's payments to banks after its 2008 bailout, Reuters reports.
At the same time, Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he would reopen the AIG bank payments issue.
He saidthat Geithner's role in the AIG bailout was overshadowed by "the two men that outranked him," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Banking committee
Members of the Senate Banking Committee have been allowed to view documents relating to AIG at the Fed.
Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, broadened access to include all lawmakers on the panel after Republican Senator Jim Bunning complained at a hearing that only the chairman and the top Republican on the committee and their staffs were allowed to see the information.
Geithner had no choice
In a separate story, Reuters reported that Geithner said the AIG bailout was not meant to help out bank counterparties and that he had no role in the decision not to disclose payments made to banks.
"We had no effective legal means to step in and prevent default (at AIG) ... without helping this firm meet all its legal obligations," Geithner told CNBC television.
