Bernanke Never Threatened Bank of America
June 25, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has denied any wrongdoing in what appeared to be a case of corporate bullying. Bernanke was accused of going so far as to threaten Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis with punishment if he were to cancel Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch in 2008.
However, Bernanke has admitted to a House committee that he did, in fact, talk to Lewis about the deal, but that he only warned Lewis against canceling it. Otherwise, Bernanke flatly dismissed the rest of the accusations against him in his first public comments since the House committee began its investigation.
Bernanke had also been accused of advising Bank of America to withhold details of Merrill Lynch’s financial struggles throughout the acquisition process, but he also stated that the Federal Reserve has no say when it comes to these sorts of matters.
This new development pits the word of Bernanke against that of Lewis, considering that Lewis leveled many of the accusations against not only Bernanke, but former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. According to the committee’s ranking member, Representative Darrell Issa of California, this constitutes “conflicting reports under oath.”
Ben Bernanke (Image: Flickr)
