{"id":14246,"date":"2020-04-04T09:11:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-04T16:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14246"},"modified":"2020-04-04T09:11:40","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T16:11:40","slug":"theres-going-to-be-scandal-involved-in-this-bailout-it-is-unquestionable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/04\/04\/theres-going-to-be-scandal-involved-in-this-bailout-it-is-unquestionable\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;There&#8217;s Going to Be Scandal Involved in This Bailout. It Is Unquestionable&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>April 03, 2020 by <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Here We Go Again! A discussion between Bill Moyers and Neil Barofksy, former chief inspector general of the TARP program, on big corporate bailouts.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>by <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/bill-moyers\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Moyers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/commons.commondreams.org\/t\/theres-going-to-be-scandal-involved-in-this-bailout-it-is-unquestionable\/76012\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&nbsp;19&nbsp;Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/cd_large\/public\/views-article\/porter-no-oversight-trump-bailout.jpg?itok=rAyM3o4j\" alt=\"President Donald Trump hands out pens to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (L) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (C) after signing the CARES act, a $2 trillion rescue package to provide economic relief amid the coronavirus outbreak, at the Oval Office of the White House on March 27, 2020. (Photo: Jim Watson\/AFP via Getty Images)\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>President Donald Trump hands out pens to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (L) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (C) after signing the CARES act, a $2 trillion rescue package to provide economic relief amid the coronavirus outbreak, at the Oval Office of the White House on March 27, 2020. (Photo: Jim Watson\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Announcer:<\/strong>&nbsp;How do you prevent&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2020\/03\/31\/trump-now-has-total-control-of-vast-virus-aid-fund_partner\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">two trillion dollars from being contaminated by corruption<\/a>? You ask a man who can\u2019t be corrupted \u2013 a straight arrow who has already stood up to some of the most powerful people on Wall Street and in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His name is Neil Barofsky, and he\u2019s Bill Moyers guest on this edition of<em>&nbsp;Moyers on Democracy<\/em>. Welcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a young federal attorney and prosecutor Neil Barofsky had sent crooked financiers to jail and brought Columbia drug dealers to justice. When overreaching and greedy bankers almost brought the American economy down a dozen years ago, Congress raced to the rescue with a bailout of over $750 billion dollars, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. As its watchdog, President George W. Bush tapped Neil Barofsky to be TARP\u2019s chief inspector general, its top cop, with a mandate to flush out waste, fraud and abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He would soon be recognized \u201cas one of the most impressive political officials in Washington.\u201d This week Bill Moyers asked him to recollect his experience with TARP and how he would safeguard the two trillion dollar government program passed last week by Congress to rescue an economy crippled from the coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They talked by telephone from their respective home offices, hopefully shuttered against the virus itself. Here is Bill Moyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/788590987&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: How are you, Neil? This is Bill.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I\u2019m good, Bill. Thank you. I hope you\u2019re doing well, and safe as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: I am, under the circumstances. And you\u2019re at home, working, there, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes, I\u2019m in the same position as a lot of people today who are trying to balance work and family, and home-schooling two elementary school students, which is a lot more challenging than my day job, so far at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: It\u2019s hard to believe that a decade ago, the government spent more than $1 trillion to bail out companies and stimulate the economy. And that you had a front-line role and a front-row seat at the time after George W. Bush, President Bush appointed you. You were the special investigator tracking that money as it was being spent. Remind our readers and listeners why we needed a special investigator 10 years ago, and exactly what you did.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I think it was [that] Congress sort of understood that when they were going to be pushing out so much money over such a short period of time \u2014 and back then it was to the banks, right? The money was going to the very institutions that had caused the massive financial crisis that we were all living and breathing and experiencing back in 2008 \u2014 that it would be a good idea to have someone there to keep an eye on the money [and] to be an advocate for the taxpayers, whose money was being expended. And so they created this office, the Office of the Special Inspector General, for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. And that mouthful\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers:&nbsp; Wow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014produced one of the great acronyms of government, SIGTARP, which was my office, to keep an eye on the money. And we did that. Congress created this office to do it in two ways. One was a transparency or reporting function. We did audits of the government programs. Kept track of what was going on in the policies, and reported that out to the American people and to Congress.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the other side was law enforcement. We were like a mini FBI for the TARP, policing the program, deterring would-be criminals from trying to apply and steal government money \u2014 and investigating and referring for prosecution, those who did. And they certainly did. At least, they tried. And our job was to catch them, and make sure that they went to jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: I have this image of you in my mind, the sheriff making sure the stagecoach carrying the money from the treasury to the bank didn\u2019t get hijacked.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>That is a much more romantic vision\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Is that fair?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014of my job. A much more romantic vision of my job. Think more of\u2026 \u201cThe Office,\u201d I would say, on the reruns on Netflix, is probably a more apt description of sitting behind a desk and pushing a lot of papers and relying on just a truly wonderfully talented team of investigators who actually wore the guns and the badges, and went out there and did these investigations. I was more of the bureaucrat than the sheriff\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers:&nbsp;From a pretty mediocre office in the basement of the Treasury, if I remember correctly. And you had a very small staff, given the challenge you were facing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. Well, one of the things about the statute is they created the office from scratch, which means I was the first employee. So we had no office space. We had no employees. I was employee number one. And so when we first started, they put me in a basement corner of the Treasury Department in that beautiful sort of amazing building right on Pennsylvania Avenue, right next to the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although one couldn\u2019t see the White House from my subterranean spot. And it also had a terrible smell to it that I will never forget, and later [I] found out it was because it was actually over an open sewage pipe that was right under the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But more concerning was just trying to get up to speed as hundreds of billions of dollars were flying out the door with no staff, and trying to staff up and do all that at once was a dramatic experience, to put it mildly. And certainly one I will never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Your job was to see that this massive corporate bailout would be managed in such a way that it would accomplish its mission. And remind us of what that mission was.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;When it was described to the American people, and when it ultimately passed Congress \u2014 and if you may recall, the first time the legislation that enabled the TARP to exist, it failed in Congress. And eventually, it was passed. And I think one of the reasons why it failed was as originally envisioned, it was really all about helping Wall Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And a number of members of Congress didn\u2019t like that, and weren\u2019t supportive of that. And so it came back to the administration, and [they] said that this would help Main Street as well as Wall Street. And the two big promises that were made were 1) that yes, banks would receive this money. But they would do so in order to increase lending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because if you may remember, credit had just come to a standstill at that time. And so the idea of injecting this money would increase lending to make sure that the wheels of capitalism could keep turning. And the second promise was to help struggling homeowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because as, you may recall, a foreclosure tsunami was sweeping across the country. And because of the predatory practices of the banks, and other financial institutions in the lead-up to the crisis, millions of Americans were in homes with mortgages that they couldn\u2019t afford and didn\u2019t understand. And one of the real demands was that this incredible outpouring of taxpayer assistance helped them too, the victims of the financial crisis, who were losing their homes, their hopes and their dreams, by the millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Were those two goals accomplished \u2014 to jumpstart bank lending, and to protect homeowners from foreclosure?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Sadly, no. The crisis was averted. And that\u2019s a good thing. And lending restarted, which was a good thing. But the goal of increasing lending, of giving an opportunity for Main Street businesses to get the capital that they needed, and the credit they needed, that never really happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think in part because but it wasn\u2019t really that strong of an effort within the Treasury Department to keep an eye towards increasing lending, towards helping Main Street. When we suggested that conditions be imposed on the funds to make sure that the money was used by the banks in order to increase lending, we were shot down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we suggested that it at least be incentivized, that there be favorable interest payments on the loans and the type of preferred stock that was being acquired by the Treasury Department to give the banks an incentive to increase lending, that too was shot down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you never saw that increase in lending that was promised. And as far as the homeowners, that was even more devastating. Because there was so much money that was made available to help struggling homeowners. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could have been used to help those who were losing their homes and saw their lives devastated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the Treasury Department simply refused to deploy that money.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the decision was made quite frankly to let them rot. And what was rolled out was an ineffective program that in many cases made it worse for some of those struggling homeowners than if they had never entered the program at all. Because it encouraged predatory practices by the banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the thing that underlined the failure of both of these policies was the same. The concern was never really about helping homeowners or helping small businesses. It was only about saving the banks for the sake of saving the banks. And so when the Treasury Secretary was confronted by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren, then the head of one of my sister oversight agencies, about the failed housing programs, he [Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner] explained in very plain words that the point of this program was, and I quote, \u201cTo foam the runway for the banks.\u201dThe concern was never really about helping homeowners or helping small businesses. It was only about saving the banks for the sake of saving the banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, too many foreclosures too quickly could be devastating to the banks\u2019 balance sheets \u2014 [and] could send them back for additional bailouts \u2014 and that was what they were concerned about, not the taxpayer, not the people who were supposed to be helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And when you divorce policy goals with the actual policies as they\u2019re carried out, you\u2019re not going to achieve the important policy goals that serve as the justification for trillion dollar bailouts. And that\u2019s what we saw then. And that\u2019s what I hope we don\u2019t see now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers:&nbsp; So you were within Treasury. Yet, the Treasury Department made deals, as I understand it, with major financial institutions, and simply did not tell you about them. That was wrong, wasn\u2019t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>Yeah, there was an obligation of transparency, really for anything that touched on any of the TARP funds. And so there was a need to be able to disclose to us all of the necessary information that we would need to fulfill our goal of providing transparency to Congress and [to] the American people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And at times, Treasury failed to live up to that standard. And we had to do what we needed to do to make sure we got that information. And usually, that was relying on assistance from Congress. The pressure and oversight of Congress would often move Treasury in those instances when we wouldn\u2019t be able to get the information that we needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: You felt a lot of pressure \u2014 I still think your book<\/strong><strong><em>&nbsp;Bailout<\/em><\/strong><strong>&nbsp;is one of the most important to read.<\/strong><strong>Tell my audience where that pressure came from, and what were you to do in response to it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well, first of all, thank you for the kind comments about the book. The pressures came from a lot of different directions. I mean, I was, looking back on it now, relatively young. I was in my late 30s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d just gotten married. I was just starting a family. And, you know, I was told in no uncertain terms that because of my approach, and because of my willingness to be as critical as I believed was necessary when fulfilling my job of people in the Treasury Department or at the White House, that I was putting my future in jeopardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That my ability to get a job, or make a living on the other side of this assignment, which was by its very nature, was a temporary one \u2014 that it would be really hard for me. That there would be repercussions. And on the other hand, I was told that if I played ball, if I changed my tone, was a little bit nicer and kinder, all sorts of really good things could happen to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I could be a federal judge, or maybe a U.S. attorney or something like that. You know, dream jobs for any young lawyer. And so that was definitely a form of pressure. And, you know, you\u2019re independent. But as an inspector general, you serve at the pleasure of the president. And you know, the specter of being fired from your job, particularly when, like me, you spend your entire career in government service. And didn\u2019t necessarily have the largest amount of savings when starting a new family. Those were definitely real pressures that you feel, as any human being would in a job like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So President Bush appointed you in the last year of his administration, as the economy fell apart, the banks were crashing. And you then served under President Obama when he came in. Was the pressure greater from the Bush people than it was from the Obama people?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think the overall feel of everything really didn\u2019t change that much. I think when I was there, I would sort of remember circling January 20, 2009 on the calendar because I thought, \u201cOkay, once we get past the Bush administration and the Obama administration people come in, this is gonna be completely different. Everything\u2019s going to change. There\u2019s gonna be more of a focus on worrying about the Main Street, and people who are supposed to benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, of course, when that day came and went, very little had changed. Some of the personnel stayed the same. But even the new people who came in running the program really had that same philosophy as those in the Bush administration of prioritizing saving the banks over everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there was a thin-skinned-ness, for sure, among that Treasury Department, that any type of criticism, constructive or otherwise, was not viewed favorably, and was viewed as being political and not necessarily motivated by a desire to serve the job, or to make the programs better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Well, why were they pressuring you? What were you doing that they wanted you to cease?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think they didn\u2019t appreciate the fact that although I was appointed by President Bush, a Republican, I was and am and have been a lifelong Democrat. And I think that the notion that someone who is a Democrat would be critical of a Democratic administration, reeked of a type of disloyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And Washington is a very political town, Bill, as you know better than anyone. And what I think was hard for people to understand was that I didn\u2019t have a political job. It wasn\u2019t my job to go softer on one administration or harsher on another administration because they happened to be within the same political party that I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think that that really weighed on people, and felt like it was an act of disloyalty. And that if I\u2019m criticizing a Democratic president, that must mean I\u2019m carrying water for the Republicans. And, of course, it couldn\u2019t be any farther from the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was not politically motivated in any way. And I believe that by being critical of the Democrats or the administration, I was trying to get them to be better. And when you think about where we are today, and you think about the election of 2016, can you imagine how different our political landscape might look right now if the Obama administration took hundreds of billions of dollars and supported that wide part of the Rust Belt that ultimately left the Democratic party in 2016?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By saving those people, keeping them in their homes, beating against the perception that the priority was for Wall Street, and not for Main Street. So I felt like what I was doing was just to help and advocate for [the] American people. And I think that if the administration had listened a little bit more closely and a little bit more carefully, we could be in a different situation right now, politically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: You wrote in your book<\/strong><strong><em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/billmoyers.com\/content\/book-excerpt-neil-barofskys-bailout\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bailout<\/a>&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><strong>that you found yourself in a duplicitous world. In what sense was it duplicitous?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think one of the interesting things of Washington for someone who had not previously been there was the comfort and frequency with which people lie to one another. It is not something that I had experienced. And I had spent eight years as a prosecutor prosecuting fraud cases and narcotics cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the lies were almost like a currency in Washington. People would lie to you, and, I mean, people within the government would lie to you. And you would know they were lying. And they would know that you knew they were lying.One of the interesting things of Washington\u2026 was the comfort and frequency with which people lie to one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And they would lie nonetheless, as this is just the normal way people communicate with each other. And I guess it was a somewhat \u2014 I mean, I would hate to describe myself as being na\u00efve. Because, you know, I\u2019d spent eight years in the trenches with some truly horrific human beings, and fraudsters who committed billions of dollars of fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I\u2019d not seen anything like it, where just the presumption level of dishonesty, that really permeated the town. And so it took me a little bit to realize it, and to realize that government officials who were presidentially appointed, and you ask them for information, and they give you information, where they tell you something, and they\u2019re not telling you the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you almost have to, at least include in your calculus the possibility that somebody\u2019s lying to you all the time. And it was early on when I think I suddenly realized it, when I was told that Elizabeth Warren, who as I mentioned before, was running another oversight agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was before she was a senator, of course, the congressional oversight panel. I was told about all the terrible things that she was saying about me. And at first I was taken aback. And then I realized that there\u2019s no way that could possibly be true. It made absolutely no sense. And I called Elizabeth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we started collaborating together. But it was a light-bulb moment when I realized that there\u2019s just nothing people won\u2019t say if they think they can gain advantage from it. And it\u2019s a very strange way to operate when you\u2019re not used to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Have you seen any evidence that Washington has changed in the last 10 years for the better?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>The currency of dishonesty has gotten, if anything, has gotten worse. I think that this whole concept of fake news, and having everyone being entitled to their own set of facts is not something that we experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, ultimately if we were lied to, and could prove that something was a lie, it was generally accepted that okay, this is the truth. And this is a lie. In this environment, people are caught lying, and they just insist they\u2019re telling the truth. And one media outlet or another will confirm that something that\u2019s demonstrably untrue is, in fact, the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And everyone goes into their different tribes and their different areas. And they just battle. And&nbsp; you know, as a lawyer and someone who spent some period of their career in the Department of Justice, which was always about the pursuit of truth, and then at my time at SIGTARP when I tried to do the exact same thing, it\u2019s \u2014 that level of abandonment of the concept of the truth is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is different. They lied then. They lied now. That hasn\u2019t changed. But the way those lies are perceived, and how people have their alternate realities, I think that\u2019s very different, and very scary as we go into this next crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So what do you think are the chances that this new and even more expensive stimulus enacted by Congress last week will achieve its goals?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well there are a bunch of different programs that are within this legislation. And some of the goals are relatively simple to discern. Cutting checks of $1,200 each to each taxpayer \u2014 you know, who\u2019s making less than $79,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a pretty clear goal. I mean, the goal is to get cash in people\u2019s pockets so they can continue to eat and pay their rent and survive. You know, expanding unemployment, again, that is a discernible goal, and a very admirable one, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People are losing their jobs. We\u2019re gonna have historic unemployment very soon if we don\u2019t already have it. And getting people relief is just so vitally important. And so for those goals, I think there\u2019s a straight line between what the policy is, what the implementation is, and what will happen. It\u2019s pretty straightforward.We just have to hope is that it\u2019s not the same set of losers as last time, which is the American people who were supposed to be helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think as you get more and more disconnected from direct help to individuals to filtering that money through corporations and tax breaks and other types of mechanisms, it becomes a little bit less clear whether or not the connection between the money that is spent \u2014 and the achievement of the goal of helping workers, if that\u2019s in fact what our stated goals are. And so\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers:&nbsp; My understanding is that it\u2019s supposed to enable corporations to preserve the jobs of the people who work for them until we get this disease under control.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>But the general idea of it is we\u2019re gonna take $350 billion. We\u2019re gonna give it to small businesses. And we\u2019re gonna tell them as long as you don\u2019t fire anyone for a period of time, for eight weeks, you get to keep all the money, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so that\u2019s a pretty clear line between getting small businesses the money they need to keep employees on staff, and there\u2019s some holes in the legislation&nbsp; and I hope and pray that the small business administration will plug those holes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then you have the $500 billion program being run by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. And there, again, you have more of a disconnect between the money and how it\u2019s going to be deployed, and its impact it\u2019s going to have on payrolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a lot of that money, there isn\u2019t that direct link. There aren\u2019t necessarily those conditions that link the support with keeping payrolls high. And so there, it\u2019s much more of a let\u2019s put the money out there, and hope that everyone keeps their payrolls the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so when you\u2019re doing that, obviously, when you don\u2019t have those connections, and you don\u2019t have that same assurance, that there\u2019s an economic incentive for the company to be receiving the money to achieve the policy goal, well, that kinda brings us back to where we are in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it didn\u2019t work then. And I do worry about whether it\u2019s going to work now. But again, we also don\u2019t know all the rules and the regulations and the guidelines that\u2019s going to accompany these bills. But the fact that Congress really didn\u2019t insist on the strings attached to a lot of this money that I think we originally had been told they would, is a cause of concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That those policy goals may not be reached. And then there are other provisions which seem even further afield, tax breaks \u2014 net operating loss provisions money for the real estate industry, which just looks like traditional corporate tax breaks, which frankly have not historically been shown to necessarily have an impact on payrolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Doesn\u2019t this new bailout, include a provision which allows the Fed to meet in secret with no records kept? I mean what the hell is that about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;It\u2019s not encouraging, Bill. It is not encouraging. To put it mildly. And I see that. But the results should still be posted and made available to the American people. Good governance says you keep records, and you keep detailed documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And again, maybe this is me going back to 2008 and just being na\u00efve. But having spent a lot of time working with the Federal Reserve, I found that many of the people there, and many of the people I dealt with, not all to be clear, but many of them, and I would say the overwhelming majority, were trying to do the right thing, and wanted to do the right thing. I sort of maintain hope that they will do the right thing with this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Are the people who won the first time gonna win the second time?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>There\u2019ll be different sets of winners and losers. The big financial institutions who were obviously the biggest winners of the last bailout, they\u2019re gonna win again. They always win. That\u2019s kinda the way our system is organized.The big financial institutions who were\u2013 obviously the biggest winners of the last bailout\u2013 they\u2019re gonna win again. They always win. That\u2019s kinda the way our system is organized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps not as dramatically as last time. Because remember, last time, they caused the crisis. They would have failed, gone bankrupt, but for the government intervention. And they were restored to record-breaking profitability within a relatively short period of time because of the way the bailouts were structured, getting them bigger and even more powerful than they were going in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they won before. They\u2019re gonna win again. They\u2019re gonna be well paid for their services in helping to administer this bailout. There are provisions that are very helpful for them, including bringing back some crisis era bailout programs that will go right to their bottom line, for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they will win again. But the other winners \u2014 it\u2019s gonna be a wider swath of winners.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last time you had the very institutions that caused the problems receiving the money. And a lot of the companies that are gonna receive bailout money here or stimulus money, if you wanna call it that, it\u2019s through no fault of their own. They didn\u2019t create the virus. They didn\u2019t subject themselves to the virus. This is just a global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there will be companies that are safe because of it. And so to that extent, they\u2019re the winners. And then there\u2019s companies that are just gonna make lots of profits that is just a result of some of the wheeling and dealing of Congress. When you look at some of the extraordinary corporate tax breaks that are being extended by this bill,&nbsp; particularly in the real estate industry, those are just gonna be winners, right. We just have to hope that it\u2019s not the same set of losers as last time, which is the American people who were supposed to be helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Listen to these headlines I brought with me.&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><em>Washington Post:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><strong>\u201cCoronavirus stimulus package spurs a lobbying gold rush.\u201d&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><em>The Guardian:<\/em><\/strong><strong>&nbsp;\u201cWashington lobbyists in frenzied battle to secure billion dollar Coronavirus bailouts.\u201d&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><em>The Wall Street Journal:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><strong>\u201cLawmakers pack federal stimulus bill with pet provisions.\u201d&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><em>New York Times:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><strong>\u201cFine print of stimulus bill contains special deals for industries.\u201d I mean, that happened after the first bailout, right? And it\u2019s happening all over again.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;And we unfortunately, we should not be surprised. Right? I mean one of the realities of our system is that corporate America has a large influence on how these bills play out. And, again, we saw it maybe on miniature last time because it was really one industry that was part of this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And now, when you have something as far-reaching as this, it is the entire lobbying industry and pet projects and the things that don\u2019t seem to quite fit with the rest of the bill that are in here, and to me, that\u2019s where it would come back to my old role of oversight and why it\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because when you have something as sprawling and ill-defined as some of these programs, there\u2019s very, very little guidance and guidelines as to who that money is going to and how it\u2019s going to be spent, and what the conditions are. Oversight and transparency just becomes so much more important, in order to keep the process as level and fair as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Whereas the first bailout involved one industry, banking. And here, there\u2019s a vast number of potential recipients of the money. How real is the danger that, rather than preserve jobs, the money will flow right through the company and the companies into the pockets of shareholders?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I mean, one of the important things to remember is that for a large, large chunk of this money \u2014 particularly that that\u2019s being controlled by Treasury, for the overwhelming majority of that money \u2014 there are no provisions that the Treasury Secretary can\u2019t waive if he chooses to do so, that would keep companies from engaging in stock buy-backs or dividends or other distribution of money directly to shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without those types of restrictions, that is very much a possibility, and it is very much reality of the way this is structured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You must have unrelenting transparency and sunshine being shined on the decision-making process, the terms and performance of these programs. It is of vital importance that there\u2019s at least the risk of disclosure as a deterrent, in framing these programs, to keeping them from straying from the stated policy goal into a form of giant corporate welfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Given the huge amount of money, and the short time until the election in November, isn\u2019t political fraud a real possibility? Couldn\u2019t a lot of this money be a kind of slush fund for the president and the Secretary of the Treasury and their minions to send it where it could do their party the most good?<\/strong>To quote Justice Brandeis, \u2018Sunlight is the best disinfectant.\u2019 This is why the application criteria for lending, needs to be objective and transparent. The processes have to be politically blind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;And in this bill that real possibility is one that again, coming back to the oversight, is so important. Because this is where, you know, to quote Justice Brandeis, \u201cSunlight is the best disinfectant.\u201d This is why the application criteria for lending needs to be objective and transparent. The processes have to be politically blind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there has to be someone overseeing this process to make sure that, however the selection processes are run, that they\u2019re being done in a consistent and fair and balanced way. Because in the darkness, that is where the ability to misdirect funds away from where they\u2019re going to have the biggest impact, which is what you want, to a way that has the biggest impact for a particular individual or political party, or particular favored industry, which we don\u2019t want. Right? That defeats the whole purpose of the expenditure of this money that\u2019s not being used to achieve a policy goal of keeping people in their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it is only with transparency, and only with oversight. Because look, Washington is a transactional town. It always has been. It is an incredible corrupting influence that exists, that has always existed, and probably always will exist. And it is na\u00efve to think that it won\u2019t happen if there\u2019s not some other counter-weighing balance. And that\u2019s where you need to have transparency and oversight as this constant reminder that, \u201cHey, if you do this, if you follow that inclination and do something that\u2019s not in the best interest of the program, we\u2019re gonna put it on the website. We\u2019re gonna publicize it. Everyone\u2019s gonna know. And that political opportunity you have is going to turn it into a liability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s how you keep people honest. And that\u2019s why transparency is so important. And in some ways, for the, sort of the next-rung-level-down officials, the assistant secretaries who, you know, who are political appointees that are taking these jobs because they wanna make a difference and do it right, it is a giant blessing to them. Because it helps shield them from the political process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember when we were doing audits related to Congressional influence on decision-making process. And, you know, we found, perhaps not surprisingly, that many members of Congress called many decision-makers at Treasury and said, \u201cHey, we want the bank in our district to get money,\u201d irrespective of whether that bank should have gotten money or should not have gotten money.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And one of the things that we were able to help and protect those officials was [by] saying, \u201cLook. If you give money to these people, to these banks that don\u2019t deserve it, it\u2019s gonna be exposed. And that\u2019s not gonna do you any favors. It\u2019s also not gonna do that congressman any favors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so transparency is something that just really benefits the entire system and process, and is really a necessary component of oversight. And so we\u2019re gonna have to really keep a close eye on this as we go forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans did not want oversight of the stimulus. They didn\u2019t even want to require companies to spend the money on keeping their workers working.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>They wanted the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, to be free to choose who gets the money and who doesn\u2019t. And to keep his choices from the public for six months. McConnell then tried to weaken a strong oversight proposal. Finally, as we saw, both sides compromised, and the bill was passed with, you know, amazing bipartisan support.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Yet, when the president signed the bill last week, the only people he had in the Oval Office with him were Republican members of Congress and the Secretary of the Treasury, all, by the way, white Republican men. Now, what do you take from that? As a moment of bipartisan triumph, the first time in years this happened in Washington, the only people who get invited to celebrate with the president in the Oval Office are Republicans?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>I think it is a reflection of where we are today as a country. We\u2019re at a moment of such crisis. It is a time to come together. And I know that sounds hackneyed and it sounds like something in a fortune cookie. But it is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a moment to come together, where we come together as a country and fight this pernicious evil, the virus.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s not the time you want to sow seeds of division and rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. This is a time for reaching out. And I think it\u2019s gonna potentially really hamstring our ability to recover. But I guess that is what Washington is today. And that\u2019s what\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014it\u2019s been for the last couple of years. And you know, I maintain hope in a lot of different ways, that policymakers and decisionmakers, you know, can look past their biases and do what\u2019s right for the American people. And I maintain that hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: I\u2019m sure you noticed that Congress actually borrowed ideas and even language concerning the inspector general\u2019s office from the first bailout bill, to include it in the bailout bill we\u2019re talking about.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The language about the new inspector general is supposed to monitor how the Treasury Department extends loans and loan guarantees to businesses. And the new legislation requires the new inspector general to notify Congress immediately if the White House doesn\u2019t cooperate fully with an audit or investigation. That is familiar to you, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>Very familiar. That is, word for word, one of the provisions that I relied upon so much at SIGTARP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s, I mean, the important thing there is that is not an option. Right? That is an obligation. It\u2019s a statutory direction. And frankly, it is an incredibly important tool. For me it was an incredibly important tool. Because, as an inspector general, you don\u2019t have any real way to compel other parts of the government to cooperate with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If it\u2019s a third party, you can send a subpoena, you could bring them to court, you can get a court order, and you can force them to provide you with information. But within government, all you have is good faith. You ask for the information and you hope that they provide it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the one remedy that Congress provided me, and provided this new inspector general, is the duty, the obligation, the requirement, to let Congress know that, \u201cHey, I can\u2019t do my job, I can\u2019t fulfill these things that you told me I have to do to report on to you and to the American people, because this area of Treasury, or this area of the Federal Reserve, or this area of the White House, is refusing to provide information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it\u2019s a powerful tool. Because I will say that the mere, I wouldn\u2019t say threat, but when I would advise another agency that was refusing to provide us information, that I would have no choice but to disclose this to Congress, was pretty powerful in moving people and getting people to cooperate. Because Congress cared. Congress was invested. And they could make a pretty big deal if they felt like the inspector general was being obstructed. And so it\u2019s a key provision to insure compliance within the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So listen to this headline from&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/strong><strong>, quote: \u201cTrump takes immediate step to try to curb the new inspector general\u2019s autonomy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In fact, earlier in the week, when reporters asked Trump about oversight of the lending programs, the president replied, \u201cI\u2019ll be the oversight.\u201d Then later the White House issued a statement saying the inspector general will be subject to the president\u2019s supervision. What went through your mind when you heard that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;\u201cI will be the oversight,\u201d I thought, that was President Trump\u2019s id taking over. But that\u2019s not how you want it. And that\u2019s not how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It could strip one of the most important tools that an inspector general has in obtaining information. And information is the currency of success for oversight. You can\u2019t have transparency if you have an inspector general who can\u2019t get information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so if, in fact, that statement is breathed into life and results in the inspector general being shut down from informing Congress about necessary information, including obstruction of its efforts to gather information, that could be potentially devastating to oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It reminded me that, look, I did work under the oversight of the president, first Bush, and Obama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Technically I reported to them, although I never had a conversation with either one. But they had the ultimate supervisory authority over me. And that is that they could fire me at will.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you were going to be an inspector general, and you were going to operate within highly publicized, highly controversial, high profile programs, every day you have to go to work prepared to be fired, if you\u2019re gonna do your job the right way. You just have to take that fear and that reality and you gotta put it on a shelf in the morning, and leave it there. And then you could pick it up on your way back home. And you look at your baby, and you look at your apartment, and think \u2014 then you can worry about it. But during those hours when you\u2019re in that office, you can\u2019t think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so this is very chilling. And it has a potential of really frustrating independence. But at the end of the day, a lot of it is gonna depend on this inspector general and how they see their obligations going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: But at the same time, Neil, the new law gives the Treasury Department broad discretion over how to disperse these billions upon billions of dollars. And the fellow running Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, has been implicated in so many scandals. I wouldn\u2019t want him in the same room with my kid\u2019s piggy bank.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>During his confirmation he failed to disclose to the Senate Finance Committee nearly $100 million in assets. He didn\u2019t tell them about his role as a director of an investment fund in the Cayman Islands, where very rich people send their money to be laundered. He lied to Congress about foreclosure misconduct activity by a bank he managed. He reportedly misled Congress about a deal the Treasury Department struck with a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is the man President Trump wants to hand out billions of dollars to corporations and to Wall Street, a guy up to his neck in various conflicts of interest, self-dealing, and ethics lapses.<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>All you have to do is read David Dayen\u2019s book&nbsp;<em>Chain of Title<\/em>\u2014 to see how he chronicles the way\u2013 Mnuchin got fabulously\u2013 rich while hundreds of thousands lost their homes. What does that do to your optimism about the potential success of this bailout?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>&nbsp; Well, I would say David\u2019s book is a fantastic book. So I agree with you on that. Look I mean, for any chance of this to succeed, right, there just has to be this relentless transparency and oversight. We need to have oversight bodies \u2014 the inspector general, the Congressional Oversight Commission, Congress itself, has to be on top of these issues, and has to bring transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, you know, at the end of the day, it is Congress that gave this Treasury Secretary the wide discretion that he now has. And that was a political decision, a compromise that was made. And the ramifications of that are going to be felt any time. And it\u2019s not even a criticism of specifically of Mnuchin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any time you give any individual that much authority and that much discretion, it\u2019s fraught with danger. And here, it is particularly fraught with danger, given all the things we\u2019ve discussed up until now \u2014 even putting aside the Treasury Secretary\u2019s background, chances are, notwithstanding my optimism, that there\u2019s going to be scandal involved in this bailout. It is unquestionable. There is going to be fraud that is going to be committed in this bailout. There are going to be individuals who are unjustly rewarded, and others who should have been saved and rescued, who will be left on the side to rot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those are all realities. And so what we\u2019re really talking about is limiting how much of that occurs. And that\u2019s where transparency and oversight can play such an important role. And yes, there are real problems with this bill. And yes, there are problems with the signing statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But at least there is going to be an inspector general and there is gonna be an oversight commission. And we just have to keep our fingers crossed and our prayers alight that the right people get these jobs, that they have the steel in their spine that is gonna be required for them to fulfill their duties to the American taxpayer and we can limit some of the inevitable downsides of any type of intervention of the size and scale of this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So what does Congress do if the president refuses to cooperate on the oversight of these billions of dollars. How would you advise Congress to undertake stringent oversight?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>Well, what Congress would need to do is just to escalate the issue, and make it a very public issue. I mean, we are in a campaign year. And although I know that the tribalization of American politics is something that\u2019s very real and we see it every day, but this upcoming election is going to come down to most likely a handful of independent voters and a handful states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for those voters, the idea that any president or administration is standing in the way of providing information for the public to understand what is going on with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars is not a political winner for any president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think that\u2019s sort of what we\u2019re left with, right, is that congressional oversight is ultimately a form of political compulsion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s no winning formula of publicly blocking information from an inspector general. The reality is that information is probably going to come to the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or refusal to provide that information will supply its own narrative. I think that\u2019s what Congress needs to do though is to be relentless about it and be very, very supportive of the inspector general and the need to obtain that information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if Congress doesn\u2019t do that and doesn\u2019t escalate the issues, then nothing will happen. And that will be on Congress. But if the president makes that move, then Congress needs to respond in kind and ultimately we\u2019re gonna have a judgment on this and a bunch of other issues come November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Of course the president will nominate the new inspector general. And the Republican Senate will confirm or not. It\u2019s an even bigger job than it was 10 years ago. So I wonder, would you take the job if you were offered it now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>It\u2019s obviously something that you would think about very strongly. You know, my initial reaction would be hell no.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then I kinda remember what my reaction was the first time I was asked back in 2008. And my first reaction was, hell no.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is an extraordinarily difficult job. And it is not right now in its current format set up to succeed. The budget is too small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a lack of hiring flexibility which is gonna make it almost impossible to staff up in a very short period of time with the type of qualified people that you need to endeavor on something so significant&nbsp;and so large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s questions about whether this inspector general is gonna have the type of bipartisan congressional support that I did and that I enjoyed, which made my job possible. And I don\u2019t know in this political environment if that\u2019s something that still can exist. Although I deeply hope so.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So that we can see what needs to be done, let me ask you, if you did take it, what would be the first things you do to keep this rescue and stimulus bill fair and honest?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, first thing is you have to have immediate meetings with the policymakers who are pushing this thing through. And be prepared to make a series of rapid recommendations to bring transparency and fairness to the process. And in something like this, process really matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think what this inspector general needs to be prepared to do is to immediately get an understanding of the process and make recommendations to make it more transparent and give it the best chance of being a truly fair and objective process, not one that\u2019s distorted by politics, lobbyists or any other outside influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: So how would you achieve transparency?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:&nbsp;<\/strong>It goes back to something that we discussed a little bit earlier. For policymakers who are going to be making those types of decisions in the future: You may think that those decisions are gonna be shielded from public discourse for now, but sooner or later these things are going to come to the surface. And you\u2019re going to be judged and you\u2019re going to be held accountable for your decisions. And if you\u2019re making decisions in the darkness you should really think twice about whether or not these are the exact same type of decisions that you would be making when the sunlight is shining on you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s what\u2019s so important about these oversight functions is that deterrent, that reminder that my decisions are going to be reviewed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember one time, Bill, like it was yesterday, I was talking to one of the officials who was running TARP. We were talking about a report I did and he was complaining to me that my tone was too harsh and why did I have to do it in a certain way. And I said to him \u2014 it was, Herb Allison was his name \u2014 and I said, \u201cHerb, you gotta remember, I\u2019m not in the room with you when you\u2019re making these decisions. I\u2019m not there. The only way I get to give you my voice is through these reports. And so that next time you have these conversations I\u2019m there.\u201d And I remember Herb turned to me and he said, \u201cYou don\u2019t think you\u2019re there? You don\u2019t think your voice is heard? Your voice is the loudest voice in those meetings whether you\u2019re physically there or not.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: You wrote some scathing reports, did you not?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I would say that we wrote some very accurate reports that have been characterized as scathing. But we did not pull punches. We did not sugarcoat it. We said what we believed and found to be true, because we thought it was important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it\u2019s important for members of Congress to have seen those reports, and exert their influence and pressure to bring more transparency. And it was important for the American people to know exactly what was going on with their money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Where did you get the steel in your spine?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think, Bill, it\u2019s because I never really wanted this job. I never \u2014 it was not my dream to get some high-profile job in Washington. I was a prosecutor. I loved that job. It was the only job I ever really wanted was to be a federal prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is something I did for eight years. I wasn\u2019t looking to change jobs. I wasn\u2019t looking to move.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wasn\u2019t looking for a career in Washington. I always knew that we\u2019d move back to New York as soon as that job was over. And so the worst they ever could do to me is fire me. That was the worst that could happen. If you\u2019re gonna take a job like this, you have to be willing to get fired. It just has to be something that\u2019s in your bones because you truly serve at the pleasure of the president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And part of your job may be to cause that president great displeasure. That\u2019s part of the MO. And now I\u2019m not saying it makes it easy. But you have to be prepared to do that. If you\u2019re going to do what Congress has asked you to do and what you take that oath of office, which Hank Paulson administered to me with my hand on his family Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, if you\u2019re gonna fulfill that, you gotta be willing to suffer the consequences. And so it weighed on me. It was significant to me. But ultimately it would\u2019ve weighed on me more if I had violated my oath by putting my own personal job security over that oath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers: Neil, thank you very much. I\u2019ve enjoyed this conversation. Best wishes to you and your family.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky:<\/strong>&nbsp;Thank you, Bill. Take care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bill Moyers:&nbsp; You too.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neil Barofsky<\/strong>: Bye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/bill-moyers\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/cd_bio_small\/public\/authors\/billmoyers.jpg?itok=1SJ8WaZx\" alt=\"Bill Moyers\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/bill-moyers\"><strong>Bill Moyers<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a veteran journalist, broadcaster, and author. Former managing editor of\u00a0<em>Moyers &amp; Company<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billmoyers.com\/\">BillMoyers.com<\/a>, his previous shows on PBS included NOW with Bill Moyers and Bill Moyers Journal. Over the past three and a half decades he has become an icon of American journalism and is the author of many books, including\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1595586245?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=commondreams-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=1595586245\">Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002SB8OCU?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=commondreams-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=B002SB8OCU\">Moyers on Democracy<\/a><\/em>, and\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003Z88IO4?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=commondreams-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=B003Z88IO4\">Bill Moyers: On Faith &amp; Reason<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0He was one of the organizers of the Peace Corps, a special assistant for Lyndon B. Johnson, a publisher of Newsday, senior correspondent for CBS News and a producer of many groundbreaking series on public television. He is the winner of more than 30 Emmys, nine Peabodys, three George Polk awards. Follow him on Twitter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BillMoyers\">@BillMoyers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 03, 2020 by Common Dreams Here We Go Again! A discussion between Bill Moyers and Neil Barofksy, former chief inspector general of the TARP program, on big corporate bailouts. by Bill Moyers &nbsp;19&nbsp;Comments President Donald Trump hands out pens to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (L) and Senate Majority Leader&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/04\/04\/theres-going-to-be-scandal-involved-in-this-bailout-it-is-unquestionable\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14247,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246\/revisions\/14247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}