Details of the Goldman Sachs Congressional 'Show Hearing'

It's hard to feel sorry for Goldman Sachs since they did rape America via the AIG bailout, but the Levin hearings are about dragging Goldman across the coals for their legitimate trading activities. This is simply a 'show hearing' giving Senators the chance to posture for the voters back home, as though they are really taking on Wall Street. Here's the scheduled line up:

Testimony is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. ET time on Tuesday, April 27.

The first panel will question Fabrice Tourre, who is accused of civil fraud by the SEC , Michael Swenson, a managing director in Goldman Sachs’s structured products group, and two former employees: Daniel Sparks, who was head of the mortgage department, and Joshua Birnbaum, who was a managing director in the structured products group.

A second panel will feature Chief Financial Officer David Viniar and Chief Risk Officer Craig Broderick, followed by a final panel at which Lloyd Blankfein is scheduled to appear alone.

The only real problem, aside from another public relations disaster, that Goldman will have is explaining the amount of net profit they made by shorting mortgage backed securities. It better be small, since in their 2009 annual report they said it was "not enormous>"

The grilling overall will be exceptionally tough and distorted. Here's Bloomberg on what to expect:

Blankfein may get tougher questioning than he received in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission led by former California state Treasurer Phil Angelides in January, Geisst said. Levin’s committee first subpoenaed information from Goldman Sachs on June 30 and sent a second subpoena on March 12, before conducting interviews with Goldman employees this month.

“Levin is smarter,” said Martin Mayer, a guest scholar of the Brookings Institution who has written books including “The Fed” and “The Bankers” about the financial system. “It’s a stronger committee.”


Levin has been chairman or the top Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee for more than a decade. He delves deeply into the issues, said Jack Blum, who spent 14 years as an investigator for other Senate panels and has testified before Levin’s committee as a private citizen.

“What you’re going to expect is a guy who first of all really will have done his homework,” Blum said. “He’s a very influential senator.”


Blum said the permanent subcommittee also is one of the rare panels in which senators and their staffs cooperate across party lines.

Parade of Critics

Criticizing Goldman “is going to be everybody’s great moment,” Blum said. “It’s the parade you want to be in.

We recommend the extra large size popcorn for this event.