The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
March 20, 2009

Geithner Admits Requesting Bonus Protection Provision
-----------------------------------------------------



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, meanwhile, has admitted his staff
asked Senator Christopher Dodd to insert a provision in the economic
stimulus bill that allowed AIG to hand out the $165 million in bonuses.
Geithner made the admission in an interview with CNN.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: “We expressed concern about this
specific provision, because we wanted to make sure it was strong enough
to survive legal challenge. But we also worked with him to strengthen
the overall framework, and his bill has this very important provision
we’re relying on now to go back and see if we can recoup payments that
were made that there was no legal ability to block.”

The New York Times reports Senator Dodd is drawing outrage from
constituents in his home state of Connecticut for his role in the AIG
bonuses controversy. Dodd has come under scrutiny for admitting he was
asked by the Treasury to include the bonus protection provision in the
stimulus bill after initially claiming he didn’t know how it got
inserted.



.