Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.The story contained this corker of a fib:
The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.
Two weeks after the inquiry from Inouye's office, Central Pacific announced that the Treasury would inject $135 million.
Inouye (D-Hawaii) declined a request for an interview but acknowledged in a statement that an aide had called the FDIC to ask about Central Pacific's application. Inouye said he was not attempting to influence the outcome.Right. Tell me another one.
Show me one bureaucrat who is so brain-dead as to not understand that a call from a senator's office about an issue involving a constituent does not mean that the senator is interested seeing things come out favorably for that constituent. And when it is an entity in which the senator has a significant financial interest, well, you can draw your own conclusions.
1 comment:
As I've followed his career, he's been bought and paid for since his first appearance on the national scene as a "reformer."
Wonder who else's money he's protecting?
Thanks for the reporting!
S
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