Free Republic

If you were president of the United States, would you hire an alleged former spy for Fidel Castro to be ambassador to El Salvador, a country teetering on the brink of hard-core socialism? President Obama just did. On Dec. 9, Obama nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, despite the fact that in the late 1990s, the FBI discovered that she was working with Cuban intelligence officers. According to Insight Magazine, "When the FBI eventually questioned her about her involvement with Cuban intelligence, she reportedly refused to cooperate." Why would Aponte escape the Obama administration's scrutiny?...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Another trading day and another low for Bank of America's stock. Shares of Bank of America dropped more than 3% Tuesday, hitting a new 52-week low of $5.03 -- its lowest level since March 12, 2009. After the close of trading Tuesday, Bank of America was one of 37 financial institutions downgraded by S&P. Beyond the S&P downgrade, trading could become even more complicated in Bank of America's stock, if it falls below $5. Under that threshold, many broker-dealers will not allow investors to buy or short a stock on margin, according to a spokesperson for...

... [Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's] charges are certainly creative in that they get the bank executives coming and going: "Bank of America's management intentionally failed to disclose massive losses at Merrill so that shareholders would vote to approve the merger. Once the deal was approved, Bank of America's management manipulated the federal government into saving the deal with billions in taxpayer funds by falsely claiming that they would back out of the deal without bailout funds." ... If Mr. Cuomo truly believes that BofA shareholders and executives deserve to pay the political cost of the financial crisis, perhaps a refresher...

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

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Thursday it was bringing civil charges against senior Bank of America executives, including former company CEO Ken Lewis, for their role in the company's controversial purchase of Merrill Lynch. Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission said it had struck a $150 million settlement agreement with BofA over its decision to pay billions of dollars in bonuses to former Merrill employees. The lawsuit contends that the bank's management team understated the losses at Merrill in order to get shareholders to approve the deal, then subsequently overstated the firm's willingness to terminate the merger to...

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis was the classic American success story. But he had a weakness for big deals—and his resignation was inevitable from the second he agreed to take on Merrill Lynch. On Wall Street, one man’s exit strategy is another man’s demise. In a world where enough is never enough, nabbing that last career-capping acquisition can kill you. Bank of America’s soon to be former CEO, Ken Lewis, knows that all too well. He was ruined by his personal nemesis—the drive to bigness. And bad timing. As the old gambling song says, “You got to know when...

Bank of America Corp. announced today that embattled chief executive Ken Lewis has notified the board of directors of his decision to retire effective Dec. 31. The bank said the board will continue ongoing planning to ensure his successor is selected by that date. Lewis will retire as CEO and as a director.

BANK of America CEO Ken Lewis may have to sacrifice his company to save his job. Lewis is under fire from angry shareholders looking for change at the troubled bank. But his biggest worry may be the powerful Service Employers International Union. The SEIU, a national union with locals in a vast range of private and public workplaces, has been trying for more than a year to organize BofA's tellers and office workers -- tens of thousands of jobs. But there's no sign it will pull that off without cooperation from management. Perhaps not coincidentally, the SEIU in recent weeks...

Listening to Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, we get a sense of the "new capitalism" our new Democratic leadership tells us America needs. Frank recently praised Bank of America chairman (now ex-chairman) Ken Lewis for acting in "the public interest" for caving in to bribes and threats from former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke regarding B of A's takeover of Merrill Lynch. Lewis wanted to back out the deal last year when he discovered the massive scope of Merrill's losses. But Paulson and Bernanke decided that Merrill shouldn't fail, so...

Kenneth Lewis has been replaced as chairman of the board at Bank of America Corp. The company announced the change Wednesday evening, hours after it adjourned its annual meeting. In a vote too close to call during the meeting, shareholders voted 50.3 percent in favor of a resolution to separate the roles of chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Lewis formerly held both positions. The BofA board appointed Walter Massey as the new chairman Wednesday evening. Massey, 70, has been a director for the bank since 1998 and is a member of the bank’s audit committee. He is...

Reporting from Charlotte, N.C. -- Amid the chorus of criticism that has descended on Kenneth Lewis, Bank of America Corp.'s embattled chief executive was re-elected to the company's board of directors today, but his fate as chairman remained unclear. Preliminary voting results from the company's annual meeting today showed that shareholders reelected Kenneth Lewis and 17 other directors who presided over the dramatic plunge in Bank of America's stock price during the financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter. However, it wasn't known yet whether Lewis will retain his position as board chairman, according to a person...

The cavalier use of brute government force has become routine, but the emerging story of how Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke forced CEO Ken Lewis to blow up Bank of America is still shocking. It's a case study in the ways that panicky regulators have so often botched the bailout and made the financial crisis worse.

Bank of America (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis is fighting to keep his job because earnings at his company have plummeted. BofA's acquisition of Merrill Lynch has been a large part of the problem. Now, understanding that he is being made out to be the fall guy, he has fessed up that BofA was coerced into the deal. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. -- a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA -- according to...

April 24, 2009, 1:42 a.m. TARP Looking More Criminal by the MinuteThe issue of TARP corruption may now extend from corporate CEOs and federal regulators to New York’s attorney general. By Donald Luskin Is TARP a criminal enterprise? When a CNBC producer called me on Wednesday to see if I’d debate that question on the Kudlow Report that evening, I thought the allegation was ridiculous. How could the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program to rescue the banking system possibly be compared to the Sopranos? But now I’m not so sure. Yesterday’s sensational claims by New York Attorney General...

The integrity of the government's bailout actions are called into question by a new report. There's a lot at stake. A new report by the New York Attorney General says that government officials bullied Bank of America Chief Ken Lewis into accepting a merger with Merrill Lynch--then ordered him to keep mum about losses at Merrill. What's at stake? The integrity of the government's bailout actions, for one. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's reputation, for another. And of course Lewis' job. Thursday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo released documents charging that in December former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured...

On the heels of the resignation of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner, the Service Employees International Union is urging President Barack Obama to oust Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. “It defies logic, common-sense, and responsible governance to punish the auto industry while letting financial institutions off the hook,” SEIU President Andy Stern said, announcing his call for Lewis’s job Tuesday. The SEIU has begun circulating an online petition, calling on the administration to “show the door to CEO Ken Lewis.” “Firing GM's CEO is a positive step towards restructuring a broken industry,” Stern said. “But the Obama Administration needs...

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

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

BY GREG FARRELL and FRANCESCO GUERRARA New York. Bank of America played a role in Merrill Lynch’s controversial decision to pay $4bn in bonuses in December just as mounting losses were threatening to derail BofA’s takeover of the Wall Street firm, according to people close to the situation. BofA has said that the payment of $4bn in compensation in a fourth quarter in which Merrill racked up $15bn in losses was sanctioned by John Thain, Merrill’s chief executive. Ken Lewis, BofA’s embattled chief executive, ousted Mr Thain on Thursday after news of the bonus payments appeared in the Financial Times....

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