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The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman, backed by an array of mostly western blue-chip companies with interests in China, is creating a $300 million scholarship for study in China that he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence. The programme, whose endowment represents one of the largest single gifts to education in the world and one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever in China, was announced by Mr. Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday. The Schwarzman Scholars programme will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year master’s programme at Tsinghua...

"My time in the Obama administration turned out to be a deeply disillusioning experience." It was close to midnight on Jan. 20, 2009, and I was about to go to sleep when my iPhone beeped. There was a new text message. It was from Richard Holbrooke. It said, "Are you up, can you talk?" When I called, he told me that Barack Obama had asked him to serve as envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He would work out of the State Department, and he wanted me to join his team. "No one knows this yet. Don't tell anyone. Well, maybe...

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

Rebecca Rubin A 39-year-old woman accused of eco-sabotage in three Western states turned herself in to U.S. authorities at the Canadian border on Thursday morning. Rebecca Jeanette Rubin, a Canadian, had been on the run for a decade before surrendering in Blaine, Wash. She is accused of multiple counts of arson as part of a conspiracy with 12 other people from 1996 to 2001 in five Western states. The charges against Rubin include a Nov. 30, 1997, arson at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Facility in Harney county near Burns and the Dec. 22,...

This week financial news organization CNBC gave some mainstream attention to the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History, in which “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners are being accused of laundering of 43 trillion dollars worth of ill gotten gains. The lawsuit is said to involve officials located in the highest offices of government and the financial sector. Since this information was surprisingly revealed by the mainstream news organization there has been a very suspicious and deadly fallout at the CNBC headquarters. Within hours the original page for the article was taken down, and CNBC senior...

Central bankers are “counterfeit money printers” and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should resign for messing up the U.S. economy so badly, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Doom and Boom, told CNBC on Friday. He said Bernanke was one of the main proponents of an ultra-expansionist economic monetary policy that was to blame for the latest financial crisis. “If I had messed up as badly as Bernanke I would for sure resign. The mandate of the Fed to boost asset prices and thereby create wealth is ludicrous — it doesn’t work that way. It’s a temporary boost followed by...

NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw was taken by ambulance to a Charlotte hospital this morning after an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Brokaw, 72, who stepped down as anchor of “Nightly News” after the 2004 election, has been working a break-neck pace the last two weeks first at the RNC and this week at the DNC. Brokaw has been up early, appearing on “Morning Joe,” then reporting throughout the day and into the night. Last night, he appeared on Sean Hannity‘s Fox News show. An MSNBC spokesperson tells TVNewser, “On the set of ‘Morning Joe’ this morning, Tom Brokaw...

Ari Ephraim Rubin, vice chairman of the Jewish Defense League long led by his father, Irving (Irv) Rubin, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 20. He was 30. Ari Rubin had been active since his youth in the militant JDL, which has long been rejected by mainstream Jewish organizations for its violent tactics, and he became vice chairman in 2006. His death was ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, whose spokesman, Craig Harvey, said that a neighbor found Rubin in his car with the self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. The report was confirmed...

Thanks to Professor Jacobsen of Legal Insurrection and Dan Riehl of Riehl World View for their timely and informative posts. First of all, I'll share a conversation I had with a Democrat in Michigan yesterday. She asked me why she had only heard of Rick Santorum within the past week. I answered that because of party politics and money-on-hand of the candidates other than Romney, the rest of the candidates are having a difficult time getting their name across. "Well, I don't like that Romney, he's buying the election," she said, "and I'd vote for Santorum but everything about him...

Bahrain is strategically important and an incredibly diverse country, not only ethnically (with Arabs and those of Persian origin, not to mention South Asians and Filipinos if one includes the expatriate workers), but also religiously: The majority are Shi'ite Muslims, the ruling and more elite class are Sunni Muslims, and there are also a number of Christians and Jewish families, the latter mostly of Iraqi origin centuries ago. The Bahraini ambassador to the United States is Jewish. Because most of the opposition is Shi'ite, there is concern in American policy circles and among many journalists that a hidden Iranian hand...

Says they remind him of previous  attacks on Sarah Palin emanating from  these same useful idiots illuminati...  Shillin' for Mittens: The Great One yesterday: 'Well, Good Lord I have never seen an attack on somebody like I'm seeing on Newt Gingrich- it reminds me of Sarah Palin at this point' 'You go read Jennifer Rubin there in the Washington Compost...(lol), she's making a career out slaughtering conservatives- and Newt Gingrich in particular- because she's in Romney's back pocket.  No offense, Jennifer- it's just obvious, you're writing, I'm reading.' 'Look at George Will... I think his bow-tie popped off his neck. The fact is,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Senate will soon issue findings of a probe of the US mortgage meltdown that fueled the global financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs likely to face fresh embarrassment over its role, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose high-profile inquiry commission subpoenaed Goldman's and other executives last year, is due to release its report on the subprime implosion of 2007 and 2008. The paper, citing people familiar with the matter, said the report was expected to release emails from securities firms that developed or sold subprime mortgages and financial vehicles including...

Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom? The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism"...

US Politicians Duped By The Brotherhood In the United States, one individual maintained a pretense of "moderation" which would later embarrass the left and the right. According to the testimony of Dr. Michael Waller to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Abdurahman Alamoudi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. A man born in Eritrea in 1951, he arrived in the US in 1979 and became a naturalized US citizen on May 23, 1996. From 1985 onwards he became involved in many Muslim groups. In 1990 he founded the Washington DC-based American Muslim Council (AMC), which Waller states "has...

Global insiders are starting to gather in Davos, Switzerland for this week's World Economic Forum. JPMorgan Chase's Jamie "Obama's Favorite Banker" Dimon will be there, as will be Treasury Secretary Geithner. When attendees arrive and check in, they will be given their badges and a copy of a special Davos magazine, prepared especially for the event. In the magazine will be an article by Robert Rubin. He is an insider's insider. Participants will read the article. Rubin is so wired in that when insiders think of the people who are operating behind a president, it is names like Rubin's that...

Round two of the economic crime of the century has begun. On January 12, Lawrence Summers, President Obama's designee to become director of his National Economic Council, sent a letter to congressional majority and minority leaders seeking the second half of the $750 billion approved by Congress last October.   Citing Obama's economic speech of January 8, Summers wrote: "As the President-elect recently stated, 'we start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any other we have seen in our lifetime.'" As you no doubt recall, last September Congress, fearing the wrath of constituents, rejected a bailout scheme put together...

To House Foreign Affairs Committee July 28, 2010 Chairman Berman, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen, Honorable Members. Thank you for this opportunity to testify. Prime Minister ErdoÄŸan, and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have changed Turkey fundamentally. They do not simply seek good relations with their Arab neighbors and Iran. Instead, they favor the most radical elements in regional struggles, hence their embrace of Syria over Lebanon and of Hamas over Fatah, and their endorsement Iran's nuclear program. Over the last 8 years, the AKP government has reoriented Turkey toward the Arab and Iranian Middle East, not to facilitate bridge-building to...

Wall Street Read of the Week: "Bob Rubin Just Wants to Be Cuddled" By Max Abelson April 30, 2010 | 6:36 p.m Until today, the London Business School-educated Iris Mack was known as a Harvard Management Company whistle-blower. From now on she will be remembered for these extraordinary words about her affair with former Treasury Secretary and Citi executive Bob Rubin: "He got this funny look on his face, and asked: 'Do you want to go upstairs and...cuddle?' So that's what this is about... And not long afterward the former Treasury Secretary had his tongue down my throat and hands...

Former Citi Chair Bob Rubin (ex-Goldman Sachs banker and Clinton Treasury Secy) was criticized by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission for not accepting blame for Citi's ill-advised drive into CDOs (collaterized mortgage-backed securities that got a $45B TARP bailout). "You were not a garden-variety board member," he was told. Rubin got a $115M paycheck sitting on Citi's board 1999-2009; Rubin is frustrated with the view that he should have been more involved in Citi's operations during the crisis.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Rubin, the former financial superstar once lionized for his global crisis-fighting prowess, was scolded Thursday over the mortgage-securities disaster at Citigroup Inc. when he was a top executive there. His claim he didn't know of the risks piling up drew a sharp retort. "You can't have it both ways: You either were pulling the levers or asleep at the switch," the head of the panel investigating the roots of the financial crisis told Rubin at a hearing. Rubin expressed regret. Yet he insisted he didn't know until late in the game, when the subprime mortgage crisis...

WASHINGTON — The committee examining the causes of the financial crisis was poised Wednesday to focus on the subprime mortgage troubles that contributed to Citigroup’s near-collapse. In prepared statements, a former Citi mortgage lending officer and whistle-blower, Richard M. Bowen III, testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that he had alerted his bosses about problems in the bank’s mortgage portfolio. Mr. Bowen planned to tell the panel that he alerted top officers that as many as 80 percent of the loans the bank sold to Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and other investors were defective. “Since mid-2006, I have continually...

Addressing the nation on December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama laid out the case for an augmented American presence in Afghanistan to battle the Taliban forces seeking to push their way back into power. “Over the last several years, the Taliban has maintained common cause with al-Qaeda, as they both seek an overthrow of the Afghan government,” he declared. The president offered a brief account of the Taliban’s rise to power before the U.S. tossed them out in November 2001. “Al-Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan,” he said, “where they were harbored by the Taliban—a ruthless, repressive, and radical...

After the Iraqi parliament banned 500 candidates from contesting the March 7 national elections, Vice President Joseph Biden rushed to Baghdad to urge Iraqi political leaders to reconsider. While the ban has fueled U.S. cynicism about Iraqi democracy, such cynicism is unwarranted, especially now. The Iraqi parliament’s decision did not wipe out Sunni candidates. Even the majority Shia lists are multi-sectarian. Iraqis say the controversy is really about rule-of-law and sovereignty issues. Across the ethnic and sectarian spectrum — and even in senior Iraqi military circles — Iraqis consider it likely that there will be a Baathist coup attempt following...

Despite messing up on Iran and the peace process, subverting allies in Central Europe and mishandling the Islamist terrorist problem, Obama says there is no problem! Significantly, US President Barack Obama’s discussion of foreign policy came only at the end of his State of the Union message. Obviously, domestic matters and especially the economy come first. Yet international affairs are not only vital but often have been the issues on which Administrations are judged, no matter how unlikely that seemed at the time. It is apparently considered impolite to point out that Mr Obama has no previous experience and little...

The 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel took not only outside observers by surprise, but also Israel and the government of Lebanon. A day after an operation in which Hezbollah killed five Israeli soldiers and captured two others, the Israel Defense Forces struck Lebanese targets as far north as Beirut. Over subsequent days, the Israeli Air Force bombed Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods in Beirut and struck targets in the country's north. U.S., European, and Arab diplomats scrambled to prevent the spread of hostilities. While Arab governments remained conspicuously silent, unwilling to support Hezbollah publicly, if at all, Iranian authorities egged on the...

I've got to say, even for the Obama administration, this is a real shocker. The Clinton State Department has decided to cut off all funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), which was compiling lists of protestors imprisoned in this summer's unrest, as well as those who were killed in the crackdown. IHRDC is what human-rights advocates should be: methodical, precise, and apolitical in their work. And yet, the Obama administration has, without explanation, cut off all federal funding to the group which has consistently fulfilled its mandate. Anyone, across the political spectrum who has any interest in...

Tomorrow, U.S. diplomats and their Russian, Chinese and European counterparts will join Iranian officials to discuss the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The meeting follows new Iranian missile tests and exposure of a second covert Iranian nuclear enrichment facility. Iran enters the negotiations defiant. "The announcement of the enrichment facilities will be Iran's winning card," Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Supreme Leader, editorialized last Sunday. The meeting will be a nail in the coffin of the Obama doctrine. Throughout his campaign, President Obama preached unconditional diplomacy. "We need a President who'll have the strength and courage to go toe-to-toe with...

HANK Paulson has admitted that he kept in touch with "market participants" on Wall Street when he was Treasury secretary. But did the former head of Goldman Sachs use his government position to enrich his friends during one of the most tumultuous times in US financial history? Paulson's phone logs, which I obtained after a Freedom of Information Act request, show that the Treasury chief kept in frequent touch with a virtual Who's Who of Wall Street's power players. But a half-hour block of time could prove to be the most intriguing bit of non-information in his schedule. Let me...

Today is a milestone in Iraq. Under the terms of the Strategic Framework Agreement, U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraqi cities. In retrospect, however, June 30 will likely mark another milestone: the end of the surge and the relative peace it brought to Iraq. In the past week, bombings in Baghdad, Mosul and near Kirkuk have killed almost 200 people. The worst is yet to come. While the Strategic Framework Agreement was negotiated in the twilight of the Bush administration, President Barack Obama shaped the final deal. He campaigned on a time line to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, and...

More Disgusting than Forced Confessions [Michael Rubin] Word from Iran is that the authorities have forced Neda's father to appear on state television and say that the protestors, and not the regime, killed her.

Obama needs to support freedom in Iran by Michael Rubin June 23, 2009 Over the weekend, both conservative columnist George Will and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan argued that conservative criticism of President Obama's rhetorical restraint amidst the Iranian protests was unwarranted. "The president is being roundly criticized for insufficient rhetorical support for what's going on over there. It seems foolish criticism," Will said. "To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous," Noonan wrote. "The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as...

by Michael Rubin Street protests in Iran are important but are themselves not enough to force change. The supreme leader will not be swayed because he considers himself accountable to God, not to the people. Indeed, even the Islamic Republic's clerical establishment is irrelevant in this calculus. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's invocation of folk religion -- his appeals to the messianic Hidden Imam, for example -- is a way to bypass senior religious figures who, according to Shiite theology, will be among the greatest obstacles to the Hidden Imam's return. Nor does the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pay too much...

Iran's election result proves the US formula in the Middle East is not working June 14, 2009 On June 4, President Barack Obama declared, "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." Awed by Obama's rhetoric, many commentators -- blogger Juan Cole and MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, for example -- suggested that an "Obama Effect" could usher in a new era of hope and change in the Middle East, and a pro-American outcome in Lebanese elections earlier this month seemed to cooperate with the theory. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection...

Wow, that has to be a record for shortest tenure ever at the NY Fed. His resignation letter (below), is as Dealbook notes, rather disingenuous: Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat. Denis M. Hughes, deputy chair of the board, will take over as the interim chairman, the New York Fed said in a statement. (Read Mr. Friedman’s letter after the jump.) Because the New...

President Barack Obama has made outreach to the Islamic Republic of Iran a foreign policy centerpiece of his administration. At his inauguration, he promised that if US adversaries would unclench their fists the United States would extend a hand. Then, in his first major television interview, he told al-Arabiya satellite TV, "It is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but [also] where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach." He has. US diplomats...

Iran’s arrest of journalist Roxana Saberi recalls Iraq’s treatment of Farzad Bazoft. Michael Rubin On April 13, Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist, appeared before a closed hearing of a revolutionary court to answer charges of spying for the United States — potentially capital charges. Iranian officials brushed off Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s request for Saberi to be released. Iranian justice was quick. On April 18, the court found Saberi guilty and sentenced her to eight years. Her case calls to mind that of Farzad Bazoft, a Western journalist executed by Saddam Hussein in 1990. It is worthwhile to...

Don’t blame GOP for this messWednesday, April 8, 2009 Hoover most certainly did not ignore the problems. Hoover (contrary to his fundamental beliefs) took action. Unfortunately, as explained in Amity Schlae’s “The Forgotten Man,” Hoover “by intervening in business, signing into law a destructive tariff, and by assailing the stockmarket” did damage on all three fronts. You also are apparently unaware of the massive public projects at federal and state level that Hoover pushed for as part of his program to retain employment and high wages. The Republicans did not have a program of “doing nothing” as you stated. The...

There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House. Reports say that the head of GM is quitting under duress from the Obama administration:

Mr. Greenspan’s legacy may ultimately rest on a more deeply embedded and much less scrutinized phenomenon: the spectacular boom and calamitous bust in derivatives trading.[snip] “Proposals to bring even minimalist regulation were basically rebuffed by Greenspan and various people in the Treasury,” recalled Alan S. Blinder, a former Federal Reserve board member and an economist at Princeton University. “I think of him as consistently cheerleading on derivatives.”[snip] Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market [snip] In early 1998, Mr. Rubin’s deputy, Lawrence H. Summers, called Ms. Born* and...

Over the past ten days, as the furor over AIG retention plan bonuses has focused on Sen. Chris Dodd and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, the White House has undertaken a PR offensive to protect the highest ranking Obama Administration official who was involved in the House and Senate negotiations over the stimulus bill, in which the AIG waiver language was inserted. "Right now, you get the feeling this is all about protecting [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel,” says a former Treasury Department lawyer, who worked in that department's counsel's office on the Troubled Asset Relief Program...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will on Monday provide details about the government's latest plan to help rid banks of toxic assets clogging the financial system. The Treasury Department said in a press release that it will hold the briefing at 8:45 a.m. EDT on Monday. The Treasury Department's program involves setting up a new investment fund to buy mortgage-related securities and other assets weighing down bank balance sheets. The new Public Private Investment Program would combine taxpayer money with private funds, aiming to buy loans and free up banks to renew lending. The Wall Street Journal...

Excerpts from a 4 part New York Times article intended to lay the total blame for the financial collapse on Alan Greenspan, Phil Gramm and deregulation, but what it really does is show that the government is filled with crooks and is totally incompetent regarding running the economy. The sooner control is wrested from government's corrupt hands the better. Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy Excerpt from part 3: In 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading, began exploring derivatives regulation. The commission, then led by a lawyer named Brooksley...

Upon Rubin's retirement, Clinton called him the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton." "During his tenure as Treasury Secretary," Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) said, "Bob was an ideal public servant who put policy before politics." [8][dead link] In 1997, together with then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives, when such regulation was proposed by then-head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Brooksley Born. Overexposure to credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities was a key reason for the failure of US financial institutions Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group, and Washington...

A new Citigroup scandal is engulfing Robert Rubin and his former disciple Chuck Prince for their roles in an alleged Ponzi-style scheme that's now choking world banking. Director Rubin and ousted CEO Prince - and their lieutenants over the past five years - are named in a federal lawsuit for an alleged complex cover-up of toxic securities that spread across the globe, wiping out trillions of dollars in their destructive paths. Investor-plaintiffs in the suit accuse Citi management of overseeing the repackaging of unmarketable collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that no one wanted - and then reselling them to Citi and...

January 23, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/fugitive012309.htm Possible Sighting of FBI Fugitive in British Columbia The FBI is working with Canadian authorities to confirm the possible sighting of one of its Domestic Terrorism fugitives. Last November, the Bureau announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of four eco-terrorists known as “The Family.” Rebecca Rubin, one of the four fugitives, was spotted by a tipster who may have seen her near her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. We received several tips about all of the fugitives as a result of the publicity. Some of...

Geithner's risky oversight of CitigroupBy JEFF GERTH - PROPUBLICA | 1/14/09 12:39 PM EST As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Timothy Geithner often preached that gargantuan financial firms like Citigroup should be held to the highest regulatory standards to make sure they couldn’t take on too much risk. But when it came to supervising Citigroup in recent years, the record shows that the New York Fed eased the reins as the company blew billions on subprime mortgages and other risky deals that ultimately forced the biggest bank rescue in U.S. history. **SNIP** Geithner’s tenure at the New...

Governor Bill Richardson says it's all a matter of timing -- that if only the feds had wrapped up a corruption investigation into his New Mexico Administration by now, he'd be cleared and would be winging his way to Washington confident of Senate confirmation as the next Commerce Secretary. Instead, he withdrew his nomination earlier this week. And maybe he's right about timing. But we'd dial the clock back not to August, as the national media have in clucking that Barack Obama has a sloppy vetting process. Rather, go back to December 7, 2006. That's the day the Bush Justice...

Two high-profile culprits in a pair of colossal economic scandals bit the dust yesterday.... * Robert Rubin, Clinton's onetime Treasury secretary, resigned as senior counselor at Citigroup. * Madoffian J. Ezra Merkin resigned as GMAC Financial Services Chairman, effective immediately. Rubin architected risky debt strategy that brought once-great Citi to its knees, costing it $20 billion in losses the past year alone. ....shares fell to 10% of as Rubin was collecting $115 million in salary - plus stock options. Now America's taxpayers are forced to bail out Citigroup to the tune of $45 billion in cash and $306 billion in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, resigned from Citigroup Inc on Friday, following months of criticism of his performance at the giant U.S. bank. Rubin, 70, is stepping down immediately as senior counselor at New York-based Citigroup. He will remain a director until the bank's annual meeting later this year. Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. In a letter to Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, Rubin praised management for making the "tough decisions" to restore Citigroup to health, following $20.3 billion of losses in the year ended Sept 30. But he admitted to not having foreseen the credit...

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who has been sharply criticized over his role in the financial turmoil at Citigroup Inc., plans to leave the bank and has submitted a letter of resignation, according to a person familiar with the situation.