Trilateral Geithner: Corrupted Regulator?

Patrick Wood - Global Research, January 9, 2010

Timothy Geithner is a rising star within the membership of the Trilateral Commission: He is highly educated, has extensive regulatory experience, and is wiling to bend, break or obscure the rules to favor his global elite bosses.

In November 2008 when Geithner was President of the NY Federal Reserve, just before becoming Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, recently discovered e-mails reveal that Geithner and the NY Fed pressured the bailed-out AIG into keeping it's mouth shut about which banks were receiving taxpayer funds in exchange for toxic assets known as "credit swaps." (This story was made possible by copies of e-mails between Fed and AIG officials that were recently secured by California Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA.))

Furthermore, the NY FED and AIG then conspired to officially hide the event when AIG was required to make a regulatory filing to the SEC on December 24, 2008: The Fed crossed out the reference on its records and AIG excluded the facts on their filing.

In November 2008, the NY Fed was officially in charge of negotiations between AIG and those banks that were "to big to fail." More than a dozen banks, including Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale SA, received payments of $62.1 billion from AIG for worthless mortgage-backed contracts. What a sweetheart deal they got, too: 100 cents on the dollar!

No wonder that Geithner wanted to hide the details.

On behalf of the taxpayer, AIG was supposed to negotiate steep discounts for these worthless contracts. Yet, in October, the NY Fed had ordered AIG to not seek discountsfrom the banks, which directly dinged taxpayers for at least $13 billion.

Around November 24, 2008, when Geithner learned that Obama intended to nominate him for the top Treasury job, he was officially recused from matters dealing with specific companies. In other words, he ran like a rabbit and insulated himself from any further involvement that might be discovered during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Geithner successfully obscured his still-hidden dealings with AIG and was subsequently confirmed to be the head watchdog and guardian of America's money center.

This level and sophistication of corruption is without parallel in the history of the world. It is calculated, brazen and blatant.

Remember that in September 2008, then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry "Hammerin' Hank" Paulson demanded $700 billion in bailout funds from Congress with no strings attached. Paulson literally extorted the money by claiming that America would completely collapse in days or weeks if he didn't get the money authorized immediately. The fact that Paulson was formerly CEO of Goldman Sachs, a company with heavy representation in the Trilateral Commission, didn't deter his demands nor Congress' total capitulation to them.

U.S. taxpayers should demand that Congress immediately start impeachment proceedings to remove Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury. Perhaps the threat of a publicly-broadcast Senate trial would motivate Obama to fire him before other incriminating evidence could be presented.

From a layman's perspective, criminal charges facing Geithner might start with something like these:

Perjury - lying to and withholding information from the U.S. Senate while under oath

Theft - illegally diverting billions of Treasury funds to selected global banks

Conspiracy to conceal a criminal act - coercing AIG to file false regulatory statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Malfeasance - commission of an unlawful act in the course of an official capacity

The August Review has long pointed out and documented cases where members of the Trilateral Commission have discovered ways to raid the U.S. Treasury for private gain. A few of these articles include:

America Plundered by the Global Elite - May 18, 2005

Plundering the Public Purse - March 21, 2008

BAILOUT: America's Financial Ruin - October 6, 2008

It should be reiterated that all bankers and corporate executives are not greedy and corrupt. In fact, the vast majority are loyal Americans, law-abiding, family oriented and civic-minded. The small group of internationalists who are members of the Trilateral Commission are the polar opposite of mainstream America and live and operate as if they are above the law and any accountability to the people of the countries where they have business interests. From its founding in 1973 by Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission has never had more than 400 members at any one time; of those members, only about one third are directly connected to banks and global corporations. Since Commission membership is drawn from Europe, Asia and North America, U.S. membership is obviously quite small.

The August Review's 2009 article Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame was not widely criticized when it reported that about 12 percent of the U.S. membership had been appointed by President Obama to top-level positions in his administration: Timothy Geithner, Susan Rice, Gen James Jones, Thomas Donilon, Paul Volker, Adm. Dennis Blair, Kurt Campbell, James Steinberg, Richard Haas, Dennis Ross and Richard Holbrooke. Another Trilateral member, Robert Hormats was appointed later in 2009.

If America is to survive this pandemic of high-level corruption, then this Trilateral Commission hegemony must first be jetisoned from all positions and departments of our government; merely electing another party in November 2010 will not accomplish this.