Patrick McHenryChairman

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2009 -

- Congressman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), the top Financial Services Republican, urged Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) in a letter to hold hearings examining the allegations that Bank of America's (BofA) Chief Executive, Ken Lewis, was directed by the Federal Reserve Chairman and the former Treasury Secretary to remain quiet, or risk being terminated, leading up to BofA's government-brokered takeover of Merrill Lynch.

As recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Department chief Henry Paulson pressured Bank of America Corp. to not discuss its increasingly troubled plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co. -- a deal that later triggered a government bailout of BofA -- according to testimony by Kenneth Lewis, the bank's chief executive."

In the letter, Bachus wrote that "Government ownership and management of the private sector does not work and it is time that we extracted ourselves from the cycle of multi-billion dollar tax-payer funded bailouts."

NOTE: Click HERE to read the letter.

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