Wednesday

New snipets of testimony from February by B of A Chief Executive Ken Lewis take us into the bank’s merger with Merrill. Here’s what I think – I have not seen the Ken Lewis testimony in its entirety. Moreover, since it was given under subpoena, it is protected under privacy laws and someone in the office of the Attorney General of New York violated those laws which the person has sworn to uphold in order to leak selectively the tantalizing parts of Lewis’ testimony. Nevertheless, the testimony is out there, and, assuming that what was leaked is an accurate version of what Bank of America (B of A) CEO Ken Lewis told Attorney General Cuomo’s investigators under oath, we have the makings of a federal government that not only coerced B of A, America’s largest bank, into accepting TARP funds, not only coerced B of A into purchasing Merrill Lynch (ML) for at least $15 billion less than it was worth, but coerced B of A into keeping negative, but legally-required information, about the ML acquisition from its shareholders. The government apparently threatened B of A if it tried to get out of the ML/B of A contract, the feds would get Lewis fired. This is a conspiracy to violate the federal laws that regulate publicly-traded corporations, and the very persons charged with enforcing these laws are some of the conspirators.