Geithner threatened S&P 5 minutes after meeting with Obama

Maybe if the DOJ would drop the case it could avoid another scandal. On January 23 I reported in a post that then Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner called Harold McGraw III, CEO of McGraw Hill, the parent company of Standard and Poor and in effect promised McGraw that there would be consequences for S&P's downgrade of US debt. I quoted an affidavit filed by McGraw Hill who is defending itself of wrong doing leading up to the mortgage meltdown of 2008.

Mr. Geithner expressed anger at the downgrade. In the course of our
discussion, he referred to an asserted two trillion dollar error in S&P’s work, an error that he had
described in various discussions with the media following the announcement of the downgrade.
Having been briefed on the issue by S&P personnel in the wake of those statements by Mr.
Geithner, I explained to him that in relying on Congressional Budget Office figures, as it had,
S&P had not made an error. Mr. Geithner said that S&P had made a huge error and that “you are
accountable for that.” He added that S&P had a previous history of errors and that this was not
the first mistake it had made.
As I reported contemporaneously to my colleagues, he said that “you have
done an enormous disservice to yourselves and to your country”, that the U.S. economy was bad
and that the downgrade had done real damage. S&P’s conduct would be “looked at very carefully” he said. Such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government.

Now attorneys for McGraw Hill contend that Geithner made the call 5 minutes after leaving the Oval Office where he had met with Obama. The lawyers contend that they gathered the information by examining Geithner’s public schedule. They also contended that the timing of the Obama-Geithner conference could support the idea that they were singled out for retaliation and they want White House records. The DOJ said that S&P’s request for White House records was a “fishing expedition” and urged U.S. District Judge David Carter to deny the rating company’s request to force the government to hand over the information.
Very few public companies have had the nerve to stand up to the Obama Administration let alone accuse it of malfeasance. Here's hoping!