Report: Senate Subpoenas Goldman, Deutsche Bank, On Subprime Statements

TPM:

Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank have received subpoenas from a Senate committee that's probing whether they committed fraud in connection to last year's financial collapse, the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.).

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Carl Levin, is said to be looking into whether those firms, and perhaps others, had private doubts about the mortgage-backed securities they were putting together, despite their rosy public pronouncements about the complex products.
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And here is why:

Banks Paid $32.6 Billion in Bonuses Amid U.S. Bailout Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and seven other U.S. banks paid $32.6 billion in bonuses in 2008 while receiving $175 billion in taxpayer funds, according to a report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The state analyzed 2008 bonuses at nine banks that received financing under the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. New York-based Citigroup and Merrill, which has since taken over by Bank of America Corp., received tax dollars totaling $55 billion, Cuomo said.