Fox News Channel "Your World" Interview - Transcript

Interview

Fox News Channel "Your World" Interview - Transcript

Fox News Channel "Your World" Interview With Rep. Darrell Issa

Interviewer: Neil Cavuto

Subject: Concerns Over Federal Reserve Strong-Arming Bank Of America-Merrill Lynch Deal

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MR. CAVUTO: All right. To Capitol Hill and a grilling for Fed head, Ben Bernanke. Did he bully Bank of America executives to buy Merrill Lynch? Let's just say things got a little testy.

(Begin videotaped segment.)

REP. DARRELL ISSA: He's saying, in a nutshell, you planned to make a threat. Now, you may not have done it, but he's saying you planned. Is he lying?

REP. DAN BURTON (R-IN): One of the things that I learned was, in order to keep people from perjuring themselves, they couldn't remember anything. Are you sure you can't remember.

REP. JASON CHAFFETZ (R-UT): You are saying, if you don't go through with this deal, how is that not a threat?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD): There was not a person in this room who did not understand that he was threatened. You even used the word several times in this hearing. You used it. I didn't, you did!

(End videotaped segment.)

MR. CAVUTO: All right. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa among those doing the grilling. He's a ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.

Congressman, good to have you. And you were certainly asking some heated questioning today. But you know, I don't remember a lot of you or your colleagues, you know, railing against this merger at the time. It was heralded at the time as sort of a hail Mary pass that delivered.

REP. ISSA: Well, Neil, I'm afraid that's, in my case, that's not quite correct. I bank at Merrill Lynch. I'm very well-aware that every broker there, all the people who were stockholders, were furious that they were in fact being fire-saled to them, and they still are. But having said that, it's not about the merger. It's really about the conduct of federal officers who, behind closed doors, very clearly chose to not inform each other at certain times.

MR. CAVUTO: But Congressman, are you and I remembering the same event? You call it a fire sale. Bear Stearns went out at pennies on the dollar. Lehman Brothers we all know just went. And the fact of the matter is that Merrill at the time got a very good deal and very likely to only deal it could have gotten. So what's all this bellyaching now for? It's water under the financial bridge.

REP. ISSA: Well, unfortunately, that would be like saying that Fiat got a good deal on Chrysler, too. We're not talking about the deal, good or bad. What we're talking about is Ben Bernanke is accused by former Secretary Paulson and others of having asked to convey, planned to convey and used his power to convey a threat to Ken Lewis that if he backed out of the deal or attempted to renegotiate it, as Merrill Lynch's condition appeared to be worse, that in fact he and his board would be gone if basically the powers that be had anything to do with it.

MR. CAVUTO: Do you believe that? Do you believe that?

REP. ISSA: Today, the chairman did not deny it. What he did was he pointed to the e-mail and said, well, this e-mail doesn't say that I said they'll be gone. It says, if they need more assistance they'll be gone. He tried to explain that if they came to what he considered a bad decision, that if they came back to him, they would have to live with that.

MR. CAVUTO: All right, Congressman. We'll have more after this.

END.

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