The White House has told reporters that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner first learned of the AIG bonuses on March 10 — last Tuesday. But as Rush discussed on his show today, AIG CEO Edward Liddy testified this afternooon that Geithner said he had been aware of the situation since the week prior to when the two men talked on March 11.
So did Liddy misspeak, or is the White House’s timeline false? Better: was Geithner clueless about where the bailout money was going, or was he clueless about the political dangers of the bonuses?
Or was he not clueless at all? Sen. Chris Dodd (D, Conn.), who until today has been blamed as the author of the statutory protection for bonuses, is in turn blaming the Obama administration for insisting on the provision back in February. Just how long had the president really known about the situation before he made his melodramatic denunciation of AIG on Monday?