As some of you may have observed, we’ve given Bank of America and Ken Lewis a lot of shit over the past year, most of it well-deserved. Since sometimes it’s hard to detect when we’re actually being sincere in our praise, let us just say that when we say Bank of America and its commander in chief are awesome right now, we absolutely mean it because holy case of Strawberry Hill have they outdone themselves. Here’s the response they elicited from Congressmen Edolphus Towns, after he subpoenaed their emails in an attempt to gain clarity re: why and how the Merrill Lynch deal went down. The best thing about Lewis and Co’s decision to send a fuck you message to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by deluging the team with everything that passed through their servers is that they, of all people, can most convincingly play the dumb card. “What? You said you wanted our emails, didn’t you?”
In addition, many of the documents produced so far are clearly irrelevant to the committee’s investigation. My August 6 letter requested records “created between September 1, 2008 and January 16, 2009 that relate to the financial losses at Merrill Lynch or to Bank of America’s receipt of financial assistance from the United States Government.” You responded to this request by providing hundreds of pages of unrelated, extraneous information.
For example, you sent copies of numerous emails you received from your own employees expressing admiration for your “awesome” performance on 60 Minutes. You also included copies of emails alerting Bank of America employees to discounts at Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco; an announcement of the “Annual Pecan sale,” featuring “This Year’s Crop of Mammoth Pecan Halves”; and an invitation to attend a conference on investment in East Asia, written in Chinese. There were numerous other pages of obviously irrelevant material.
And what might have those been? Obviously we’ve got the “Ken Lewis is the man” category, but we’re talking literally every email from last year. Clearly the fall-out with regard to getting rid of Spirit Points had to have taken up a lot of e-space. Trash talk about Thain. Recaps of Lost. A series of back and forths between Angelo Mozilo and in-house counsel over whether or not it’s appropriate to tan in the buff at a public company. Emails to yours truly. Reminders about weekly 2-for-1 drinks at KL’s favorite biker bar. Strongly worded memos re: it being “everyone’s responsibility to keep the f*cking microwave clean.” Correspondence between Charlie Gasparino and a first year analyst that began with the subject line, “You ever been to Rego Park”?
Congress Does Not Want to Hear About How ‘Mammoth’ Bank of America’s Nuts Are [NYM]
The types of e-mails we are soliciting would contain language such as this:
From ML banker #1
To: ML banker #2
Re: Toxic assets
Holy shit , you think BA is gonna find out that we have an asston of worthless shit on our books?? If they do, our bonuses are fucking history. And I just put the down payment on my third house, this one in Aspen.
***
We hope this example helps you in your submissions.
- Senior Congressional Investigator
awesome
Ah, the old IBM defense.
Pecans are important.
So, is it “pee-can” or “pe-cahn?” I can never remember…
from: Lewis, Kenneth
to: Thain, John
date: Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 10:05 AM
subject: yogurt in fridge
Thain,
I have it from an unidentified source that you have been the one eating my Cherry Vanilla Dannon Light & Fit. I thought I avoided this problem by clearly marking my yogurt cups “KL”. If another one of my yogurt cups disappears I will hold you responsible.
Regards,
Ken
“Documents produced so far include letters from BoA customers containing their credit card numbers, checking account numbers, and other personal information”.
Who TF would want to bank with this bunch of morons?
“A series of back and forths between Angelo Mozilo and in-house counsel over whether or not it’s appropriate to tan in the buff”
Memo to self: don’t read DB while eating lunch. Or the contents of the vending machin.
you see what they did there? I find this all very nutty…
@naked – I’m sure JT blamed the cleaning lady…something about clearing out the fridge every friday night.
Without knowing more, it IS a jackass move by BoA. I’ve lived in both worlds (the Hill and big-firm litigation), & I know it’ll inspire the congressional staff to give BoA a well-deserved m****rf**k. Even though BoA’s policy is to archive the truly incriminating e-mails on the IT Department intern’s girlfriend’s Dell Inspirion 9200.
But with all this, how come we’ve not seen the whole Towns letter in all its splendid, pecanish glory?
Ms. Levin, once again, get over yourself. Praise for Bank of America? You’ve got to be kidding me.
@11 why don’t you leave that comment on the wrong post again?
@10
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/bank-of-americas-back-and-forth-with-house-oversight/
All the juicy bits have been adequately parsed by both NYM and Bess.
Oh shit, what about all those emails to the DB tips line? And those ardent missives to the Bessness?
Kenny by the way is what doctors call a borderline idiot savant. That is, he’s all idiot, and no savant.
When they see my e-mails, they will realize that I was on the verge of breaking this important story on-the-air. I just needed a little more time. I was preparing an exclusive report.
Oh well, even world renowed investigative financial journalists like me have their limits. I can only do so much good. Others have to step it up.
- cg
Are you sure it’s not balls? Because the last email was balls.
I’ll bet KL’s a good potato sack racer.
I dunno, what surprises me more is that the Ed Towns can even read.
@12: Levin seems to be a paid hack for BoA’s corrupt execs and PM’s.
@19 yes, totally. I’m sure BAC pays big money for Bess to routinely write that its CEO is a fall down drunk.
I’m going to write all my correspondence on “questionable transactions” in Chinese. Then when the Fed’s subpoena my correspondence, they will deem it “irrelevant”. Awesome!
Who needs client-attorney privilege when you have the foreign-language-irrelevant doctrine.
@19 If you had said JPM or GS, it would have been somewhat more believable.
Contempt of Congress charge, followed by full hearings.
Please. I’m begging.
@22 only relatively speaking, considering the shit “ms. levin” gives BAC on a routine basis. don’t seem to recall her giving preferential treatment to GS, however. JPM (more so Jamie Dimon), yes, and of course her favorite hf managers.
At JT Marlin Securities, we recently placed security procedures in place to deal with untoward intrusions, such as this, into our business practices.
We require each of our associates to agree to not place any sensitive correspondance, client information and so forth, in writing. We conduct all important business by word-of-mouth, and enforce this rule vigorously.
These procedures have enabled us to avoid unnecessary distractions, such as congressional inquiries, and focus exclusively on the needs of our clients.
Hello, I’m the manager of a successful hedgefund. What is a “Bess Levin?”
@22,11,19
If Bess is showing favoritism to those people, my question is, who does she hate and pick on? The only person who gets it worse around here is Satan…. I mean Biff Basness himself.
@27 I don’t think Bess goes after anyone, she seems to dish it out pretty fairly. That said, she does seem to have a few favorites from hedge fund land, as well as Dimon. The question is what are they doing to curry her favor?
@27 I’m savagely maligned here (and everywhere else) as well.
-Lenny D
wow, so “please send us your incriminating emails” gets response: “sure, duh”.
To : All Employees
From: Ken
Date 08-32-09
Subj: Making the Bank Look Good
*************************
Times like these bring out the best in all of us. Effective immediately, lease do not refuse check cashing services to people without any arms.
Also, please refrain from opening a bottle of fake Georgio perfume in any branch office due to the expensive EMS charges related to false gas attack hysteria.
Additionally, when buying scratch-off lottery tickets at an offsite convenience store, please step away from the counter while you are feverishly “scratching” off your scratch-off ticket. It is “bad form” to stand, scratch, win and demand payment only to do it over again while customers are waiting in line behind you.
Please do not pick your nose during a televised sporting event as the owner of the Dallas Cowboys was seen doing recently. And, please do not carry “Slim-Jim sausage sticks in your shirt pockets.
I know you will all join me in these small, ongoing efforts to make the bank look good.
Bess, I bow down.
You are the master of super-secret, uber-double-reverse, backwards, on the flip-flop, Break-on-through-to-the-other-side, both-ways-and-twice over-on-Tuesdays irony.
@32 what?