Sorry, that's a Gummint Motors brand, too....
Posted on 11/18/2010 6:42:42 PM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
President Obama's original car czar has been sued for corruption in New York:
Former Obama administration official Steven Rattner was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Thursday for his role in a pay-to-play scheme involving New York's pension fund.Rattner, the former auto czar, agreed to pay $6.2 million and to a two-year ban from associating with any investment adviser or broker-dealer to settle the SEC allegations, the SEC said Thursday.
Separately, Cuomo's office filed two lawsuits against Rattner, seeking at least $26 million and an immediate lifetime ban from the securities industry.
"Steve Rattner was willing to do whatever it took to get his hands on pension fund money including paying kickbacks, orchestrating a movie deal, and funneling campaign contributions," said Cuomo, who is the incoming governor of New York. "Through these lawsuits, we will recover his ill gotten gains and hold Rattner accountable."
A lawyer for Rattner did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.
The complete statement from the New York State Attorney General's office is here. It indicates that this investigation has been going on for three years, meaning that it predates Obama taking office and appointing Rattner to the position. In addition, at the time Rattner left office, several months after first being appointed, public reports were already surfacing about his role in the scandal.
This calls into question what sort of shoddy background checks the administration did in this case, and whether or not that shoddiness might be at play in any other appointments.
It also calls into question the wisdom of the Obama team in creating all these "czar" positions, positions with cabinet-level authority, but not subject to the same senate confirmation processes as actual cabinet members. Had the confirmation process gone forward, as envisioned by the framers, we might not have had, even for a short time, a man in charge of the auto companies who is now squarely implicated in a major scandal.
The only person in the White House who has ever been vetted is the dog.
Who else but crooks would have anything to do with this white house, or the dem party of today for that matter.
Ask me if I am surprised.
The President wasn’t vetted, why should anyone expect his czars to be.
Hey, Rattner made little Barry O feel like he was back home in Chicago with Tony Rezko.
Sorry, that's a Gummint Motors brand, too....
It's interesting the whole notion of czars in our executive seemed to come from… (shock, shock! surprise surprise!) FDR. He had about a dozen.
Reagan had 1, a drug czar.
While Clinton had 8, it looks like W exploded the number to over 30, many focused on post-9/11 tasks.
Obama has nearly 40 czars. It's insane.
Steve Rattner is a CROOK...PERIOD!!
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