Geithner Asked To Testify About "Deceptive Public Statements"

By Mario Trujillo

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will investigate the transparency of the TARP program and the Treasury Department’s statements about the AIG Bailout in its first hearing, scheduled for Jan. 26.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be asked to answer questions regarding the AIG bailout and what Issa called “deceptive public statements” made by the Tresury in the first oversight hearing headed by a Republican majority.

Special Inspector General for the TARP program Neil Barofsky will also address questions of transparency as well as the “failure” of another program to alleviate home foreclosures, according to a release by the committee.

“TARP was conceived by a Republican Administration, approved by a Democratic Congress, and has operated for two years under the current Administration,” the Oversight Committee’s new chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “It’s a fitting subject for bipartisan oversight in the new Congress.”

The Troubled Asset Relief Program was set up in 2008 so the government could purchase bad assets from financial institutions in the wake of the mortgage crisis.