Administration Refutes Geithner and Summers' Approval of BofA-Merrill Merger

Oct. 20, 2009 — -- During last year's transition period between presidential regimes, Obama economic aides Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers signed off on the Bush administration's deal to bail out Bank of America if it finalized its merger with ailing investment bank Merrill Lynch, according to bank documents obtained Tuesday by ABC News.

However, both the White House and Treasury today disputed that Summers and Geithner ever agreed to any financial decisions made during this time period.

"Mr. Summers received occasional briefings by Federal Reserve officials during the transition, but he did not make, review, or approve decisions regarding financial institutions during that time," White House spokesman Matthew Vogel said in a statement.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said, "After being named as Treasury Secretary nominee, Geithner was recused from any issues involving individual banks, including Bank of America. It was perfectly natural and appropriate that the incoming Treasury secretary would be kept apprised of key developments, but he was not making decisions for the government."

In January, when the Obama administration took over, Summers became National Economic Council director and Geithner replaced Henry Paulson as Treasury secretary.

The Bank of America documents detail internal bank discussions as the merger unfolded last December. One document consists of talking points that the bank's general counsel, Brian Moynihan, prepared for CEO Kenneth Lewis to use on a conference call with board members on December 22.

As a preface to the talking points, Moynihan acknowledged, "Some of the characterizations of what Hank or Ben said are from our notes, so we may have not had the exact thoughts correctly stated, but we tried to catch the gist of the conversations." In the document, "Hank" refers to then-Treasury Secretary Paulson, and "Ben" is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The conference call came as the bank was talking with federal regulators about backing out of the merger, worried about Merrill's substantial fourth-quarter losses last year. To scuttle the deal, the bank intended to cite the Material-Adverse Change clause, known as a MAC.