disservice to yourself and to your country. and went on to say, s&p s conduct will be quote, looked at very carefully. such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government. two weeks later the new york times, andy, reported that an investigation had begun in ernest against s&p. s&p alone. and now the lawsuit, comment on that declaration. well, i m betting that he also has con temtemporaneous no. i imagine he will have a way to back it up. they wouldn t have a recording, but you have that, the fact that the investigation clearly ratcheted it up, and they were cleared and moody s wasn t. unfortunately, it doesn t make them innocent. it makes the case stink. what are they trying to do?
just s&p, s&p s, moody and to a lesser extent, i guess, fitch. they re trying the case in the court of public opinion. s&p? yes, i m inclined to believe it is retaliation. that doesn t necessarily mean they didn t commit fraud. and because moody s should be there doesn t make them innocent but there must be a reason why the obama administration chose not to go after moody s. there was a judge in the case who actually questioned where the heck is moody s. why is it just standard and poors? you raised the question of warren buffet, is it a friendship thing or a retaliation against s&p? it is pretty weird, because until you get to 2011, and s&p says mean things about uncle sam and the credit rating, all the investigations are about both of them. the state and federal regulators, it is all focused on all of them.
geithner. and long before they downgraded us. so this cannot be, this lawsuit, even though it was filed after that can t be retaliation since we began the investigation long before any of this. right, that is what they say. what they were doing was both investigating s&p and its competitor, moody s, which coincidently was owned by obama pal warren buffet. and this investigation, looking mainly at moody s, the inquiry commission, talked to two of the commissioners today, one of them said the commission was really focused on moody s, thought there was more there and did a lot more digging. but after the downgrade, s&p strips them, and they focus on s&p. that is the key point, if they were bad actors, and all the incidents leading to the meltdown, saying they were great, great, great, it was not
you have done an enormous disservice to yourself and to your country. and went on to say, s&p s conduct will be quote, looked at very carefully. such behavior could not occur, he said, without a response from the government. two weeks later the new york times, andy, reported that an investigation had begun in ernest against s&p. s&p alone. and now the lawsuit, comment on that declaration. well, i m betting that he also has con temtemporaneous no. i imagine he will have a way to back it up. they wouldn t have a recording, but you have that, the fact that the investigation clearly ratcheted it up, and they were cleared and moody s wasn t. unfortunately, it doesn t make them innocent. it makes the case stink. what are they trying to do?
accusing the obama administration of using a multi-billion dollar lawsuit as political leverage. we talked about standard and poors, and why s&p claims it was singled out by the department of justice after the s&p angered the white house. joining me now, james freeman, the assistant editor of the wall street journal editorial page, and andrew macarthur is a former federal prosecutor. so james, let me start with you. in an affidavit that was filed this week by this guy, harold mcgraw iii who basically runs s&p, he insists this was a down grade for what they gave the u.s. treasury back in 2011. the administration came out and said we were investigating s&p long before mr. mcgraw alleges he was threatened by tim