The Washington Post reports:
Last July, the Obama administration’s “auto czar,” Steven Rattner, unexpectedly stepped down after guiding the federal government’s bailout of the auto industry for five months.
Rattner kept quiet when he resigned, but associates told news outlets that he was leaving because the auto companies were emerging from bankruptcy and his primary work was coming to an end.
In fact, Rattner was also being advised by his lawyers to make himself a lower-profile target for federal and state investigators who were probing whether he had paid off a middleman to win a lucrative contract from New York’s pension system while he worked on Wall Street, a government source said Wednesday.
But stepping out of the limelight did little to get the bull’s-eye off his back. The Securities and Exchange Commission has pressed recently for a settlement of its investigation that would ban Rattner from working in the securities business for up to three years, two sources familiar with the case said. Such a penalty could spoil his dream of returning to a prominent post in Washington.
Rattner’s time as auto czar was either a complete failure or a smashing success, depending on whether his job was to restore GM and Chrysler to productivity, or to protect their unions. If he thinks his dream of returning to Washington is still alive, that tells you what he thought his job was.
(Via Instapundit.)
Internet Scofflaw 