Chrysler

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Obama Administration officials had advance notice that General Motors would run deceptive ads claiming to have paid taxpayers back for its bailout, and did not veto or object to those ads despite the opportunity to do so.  Only later did Administration officials distance themselves from those deceptive claims, and they did so only after the falsity of those claims became so obvious to the public that they could no longer be parroted.  Treasury Secretary Geithner had parroted those deceptive claims, which then drew criticism from the TARP inspector general, members of Congress, and financial reporters.  Geithner publicly repeated GM’s deceptive claims, even though the Treasury Department had weeks in which to review GM’s claims and discover their inaccuracy.

Treasury Department Documents released last week in response to a think-tank’s Freedom of Information Act request make this clear.  Those documents illustrate that GM and the Obama Administration coordinated GM’s PR strategy regarding the company’s controversial TV and print ad campaign in 2010, in which the car maker misleadingly claimed to have repaid what it received from taxpayers.  In those ads, GM’s then-CEO, Ed Whitacre, claimed GM had already repaid its government bailout loan “in full, with interest, five years ahead of schedule.

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