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Jeff Sessions’ path to regaining a place in the U.S. Senate may have gotten a little bit easier. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill decided to end his own run for Senate yesterday specifically citing the ex-Attorney General’s entry into the race in his campaign suspension announcement on Facebook. With the announcement by Senator Jeff Sessions on November 7th, the dynamics of this election have changed dramatically. When I entered the race on June 25th, I, along with my family and closest supporters, saw a path to victory. We met our initial goals and had six months of successful...

A large contraption parachuted to the ground at a farm in Merrill, Mi., this morning. One of the companies responsible for the space junk has already come to the farm to pick it up. ...Outside, with a closer look, they found a four-legged object with an aluminum foil-wrapped box. The top of the conglomeration had what appeared to be solar panels. Inside the box were two large cameras and one Samsung cell phone, according to Nancy Welke. ...At nearly the same time, a large balloon came down onto a power line in Wheeler, Mi., a few miles away. Welke says...

At State, Marshall served as chief of protocol from 2009 to 2013. In that role, she helped the State Department and White House manage issues related to diplomatic protocol. She entered the Clinton sphere during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, working as a special assistant to Hillary Clinton. She later worked on Clinton’s senatorial and presidential campaigns, helping lead fundraising efforts. The DC Leaks emails appear to be authentic. The emails, which appear to be from Marshall’s Gmail account, span the period from March 2015 through June 2016.

How committed are the Clinton campaign officials to hiding her medical condition? It would appear much more so than even the most cynical media are considering. Remember, the issue with Hillary Clinton’s health is not so much that she is sick (voter sympathy), but more an issue of how far her campaign is willing to go to hide the fact that she is sick in order to achieve her/their lust for power (voter fraud). In the video of Hillary Clinton’s collapse on September 11th, understandably everyone focuses attention on Hillary herself. However, almost no-one is discussing Hillary Clinton’s traveling press...

No WAY is Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis going to be the only one to answer for the acquisition of crappy Merrill Lynch and its crappy bonuses, "a person close to Lewis's defense team" (who may or may not be Ken Lewis himself) tells Charlie Gasparino today on the Daily Beast. NO WAY will he be a scapegoat, alone, for the people who twisted his arm to go through with the Merrill deal by telling him he would be fired if he didn't. "If this thing goes to trial you can expect both Paulson and Bernanke to be on...

Wall Street sees carbon trading and related derivative products as the next big thing in financial innovation. Critics say it's the next big financial mess. Carbon trading provides a way for companies to stimulate green energy and carbon reduction projects by financing them through the purchase of carbon credits. Such trading has slowed over the past year or so amid uncertainty about regulations and global emissions targets. Eventually, though, many expect carbon trading to balloon into a multitrillion-dollar business. FOE and other environmental groups have been pressing the Senate to pass legislation that puts strict limits on banks' involvement in...

A House oversight panel is examining the $45 billion federal bailout of Bank of America Corp. and its shotgun acquisition of Merrill Lynch&Co. last year at the height of the financial crisis. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been investigating the government's role in pushing the hastily arranged takeover of Merrill Lynch, the tumultuous events surrounding the deal and the payment of billions of dollars in bonuses to Merrill employees. The panel has previously asked Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank, to hand over related documents. The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing at...

Government regulators threatened to remove top Bank of America executives in December if they didn't acquire Merrill Lynch, but also agreed to provide taxpayer funds to compensate for Merrill's poor performance, according to company records obtained by The Washington Times. The documents -- e-mails between bank executives and their outside lawyers as well as board-meeting talking points prepared for then-Chief Executive Ken Lewis -- indicate that former Treasury Secretary Henry Mr. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke promised to give the bank taxpayer bailout funds to compensate them for Merrill's poor performance. Summaries written by the...

Dispute of Paulson, Bernanke testimony Court documents show that federal regulators were told about billions of dollars in bonuses awarded to Merrill Lynch executives during the company's takeover by Bank of America - contradicting statements to Congress by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), in a brief filed in ongoing litigation with Bank of America Corp., said the bank informed the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve of the Merrill Lynch bonuses as early as Dec. 17 - weeks before the government approved a $20 billion bailout...

n prepared remarks for a Congressional hearing obtained today by ABC News, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson admits telling Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis that the Federal Reserve could remove the bank's board members if they backed out of their proposed merger with Merrill Lynch last December. In prepared remarks for a Congressional hearing obtained Wednesday by ABC News, former Treasury... (AP Graphics) On Thursday morning, Paulson will defend his actions before the House Oversight Committee in the last of three hearings that the panel has conducted on the controversial merger. When Bank of America considered scuttling the merger...

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke engaged in a "cover-up" to disguise his actions in strong-arming the merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch last fall, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged in a statement released moments ago. Quick catchup: Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis has twice testified under oath that Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson threatened to remove him (Lewis) and the B of A board if he didn't go through with a proposed merger with troubled brokerage Merrill Lynch. Lewis said that he considered trying to back out of the deal as he saw Merrill's losses...

NEW YORK -- Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told the New York attorney general he believed former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wanted him to keep quiet about the worsening terms of the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, according to testimony reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Four of the top executives at Merrill Lynch pocketed $121 million in bonuses just before taxpayers helped finance a takeover of the failing firm, the Daily News has learned. The flush foursome each pocketed payments ranging from $18 million to $39 million, investigators from the state attorney general's office found. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for the past month has been examining the highly suspicious timing of the last-minute Merrill handouts. In all, Merrill doled out $3.6 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America finalized its deal to buy the collapsing firm - with the help of $45 billion...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Merrill Lynch quietly paid out at least one million dollars bonus each to about 700 top executive even when the investment house was bleeding with losses last year, a probe has revealed. They were part of 3.6 billion dollars in the firm's bonus payments in December before the announcement of its fourth quarterly losses and takeover by Bank of America, the investigation by the New York state Attorney General's office showed. "696 individuals received bonuses of one million dollars or more," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said of the Merrill scandal in a letter to a...

Bank of America Corp. said Wednesday it is selling some of its corporate aircraft as the bank looks to scale back costs. The move comes as many financial firms are giving up private jet travel as scrutiny mounts over lavish spending after the companies received billions of dollars in rescue funds. Since October, Charlotte-based Bank of America has received $45 billion in government assistance, including a $20 billion injection last month to help with its troubled Merrill Lynch & Co. acquisition. "As part of an ongoing cost reduction effort we have been scaling back on our use of corporate aircraft...

Bank of America Corp.’s board expressed support for Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis following its meeting Wednesday. “The board today during the regular meeting expressed support for Ken Lewis and the management team, noting their expertise in managing through challenging environments and in assimilating mergers,” lead director Temple Sloan Jr. said in a statement issued through a bank spokesman.

BY DAN FITZPATRICK and JOANN S. LUBLIN Bank of America Corp.'s handling of its acquisition of troubled Merrill Lynch & Co. has put Chairman and Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis on the hot seat with irate shareholders. Among those disappointed in the steep decline in the bank's stock are two veterans who helped Mr. Lewis rise to the top. Hugh McColl Jr., Bank of America's buccaneering former chairman and chief executive, who picked Mr. Lewis as his successor, and James Hance, the bank's former chief financial officer, privately have expressed disappointment in the types of risks taken by Bank of America...

Prepare to bury the fatally wounded big banks By Frank Partnoy Published: January 18 2009 19:04 | Last updated: January 18 2009 19:04 Friday’s bad news from Citigroup and Bank of America confirmed what many experts have long suspected: the subprime losses of 2007 were a bullet that fatally wounded the banks. Many lost so much money on toxic subprime mortgage-related derivatives that they have been essentially insolvent for more than a year. It has taken so long for these banks to fall only because of government support and some investors’ bottomless capacity for denial. Consider Friday’s eye-popping figures. Bank...

BY DAN FITZPATRICK Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis on Friday rejected the suggestion that he and his team did not conduct enough due diligence before agreeing to buy securities firm Merrill Lynch & Co., saying forecasts did not suggest Merrill's assets would drop so suddenly in value. "We did not expect the significant deterioration in mid to late December that we saw," he said on a conference call with analysts. The fourth-quarter decline at Merrill led to an agreement announced Friday giving Bank of America $20 billion in additional U.S. aid and a government guarantee to backstop...

BY ERIC DASH, LOUISE STORY, AND ANDREW ROSS SORKIN Kenneth Lewis gambled on bold acquisitions to build Bank of America into the nation's largest bank. But the need for fresh government support to grapple with the newly revealed losses at Merrill Lynch, the brokerage firm he snapped up in a rapid-fire arrangement at the height of the financial crisis in September, raises questions about whether the bank has gone a deal too far. Two weeks after closing its purchase of Merrill Lynch at the urging of U.S. regulators, the government cemented a deal at midnight Thursday to supply Bank of...