On AIG Dodd Points At Obama Administation

Politico last evening headlined - - "Dodd facing fresh political firestorm" – followed by a story which began:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) looks like he may be facing a fresh political firestorm.

Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the controversial provision.

“We wrote the language in the bill, the deal with bonuses, golden parachutes, excessive executive compensation that was adopted unanimously by the United States Senate in the stimulus bill,” Dodd told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this afternoon.
“But for that language, there would have been no language to deal with this at all.”

Dodd had previously said that he played no role in writing the controversial language, and was not a part of the conference committee that inserted the language in the bill. As late as today, Dodd’s spokeswoman denied the senator’s involvement.

The rest of Politico's story's here.

It sure sounded like Dodd was the number one AIG "bad guy."

But then Dodd, who must know he’s in jeopardy of losing his Senate seat next year, released a statement that amounts to: Don’t blame me; I only did what the Obama administration wanted. And Obama can get that bonus money back from AIG if he wants to.

Dodd's statement follows in full as added to the Politico story as an Update.

“I’m the one who has led the fight against excessive executive compensation, often over the objections of many. I did not want to make any changes to my original Senate-passed amendment but I did so at the request of Administration officials, who gave us no indication that this was in any way related to AIG. Let me be clear – I was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until I learned of them last week.

“Reports that I changed my position on this issue are simply untrue. I answered a question by CNN last night regarding whether or not a specific date was aimed at protecting AIG. When I saw that my comments had been misconstrued, I felt it was important to set the record straight – that this had nothing to do with AIG.

“Fortunately, we wrote this amendment in a way that allows the Treasury Department to go back and review these bonus contracts and seek to recover the money for taxpayers. Again, I have led the fight to curb excessive executive compensation, and will continue to do so.”
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Folks, there’s clearly a need for a thorough investigation of the AIG bonuses, the conflicting stories we’re being told, and so much more concerning the scandalous government mismanagement of billions of the bailout money.

But who would you trust in The White House or Congress to do the investigating?