Free Republic

Subprime Scandal: We've long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn't honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up. In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal. Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street's role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Capitol Hill's most feared panels, has a history with Goldman Sachs. He clashed publicly with its Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis. The Democratic lawmaker again tore into Goldman at a press briefing on...

The powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expanding its investigation of possible ethics violations by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, including improper "backdoor communications" between the panel and trial lawyers suing major banks over subprime investments, IBD has learned. The Democrat-appointed commission, tasked with examining the "root causes" of the crisis, used its subpoena power to extract millions of pages of confidential memos and emails from banks. Those documents were posted on the Web and are now being used in major litigation against these banks. Some documents posted on the FCIC site include correspondence with federal regulators that...