GS would have just said that Moody’s assigned a AAA rating and that GS isn’t in the ratings business.
I am not talking about a small investor buying a $10K bond, but a pension fund treasurer buying $100 million worth. If the sales team declined to give an opinion on the bonds while pitching for the business, they probably wouldn’t make many sales. At the very least, an sensible buyer would consider such an answer highly suspicious.