WASHINGTON BUREAU — Sen. Charles Grassley believes American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) may have authorized some executive bonuses after the federal government began helping it in September 2008.
If so, the government might be able to stop AIG, New York, from paying those bonuses, Grassley, R-Iowa, says in a letter sent to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Grassley is asking Treasury Department officials for more information about AIG bonus payments.
"At a minimum, why should Treasury honor contracts executed in September and October, 2008, after AIG began receiving billions in taxpayer support?" Grassley writes in the letter.
Grassley says he believes AIG negotiated some retention bonus agreements in October 2008, after the passage of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Grassley also wants:
- An accounting of the administration's efforts to follow through on President Obama's pledge to "pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole."
- Information about what has been done to determine the role that bonus recipients may have played in decisions that contributed to the losses that threatened to bring down AIG.
Grassley told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at a budget hearing Wednesday that the Treasury Department has failed to provide bonus program information that he requested in December 2009.
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