Nation : Officials Pressured, Letter Says
WASHINGTON — A lawyer for savings and loan financier Charles H. Keating Jr. bragged in a 1988 letter released today that she had pressured federal regulators.
“You have the (Federal Home Loan Bank) board right where you want them and you should be able to reach an agreement . . . which will completely satisfy you,” Washington lawyer Margery Waxman wrote in the May 10, 1988, letter.
Waxman, who was referring to an upcoming meeting with board officials, told Keating she had “put pressure on” M. Danny Wall, chairman of the bank board and then chief regulator of thrift institutions.
House Banking Committee Chairman Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.), who released the letter, said it suggests “the fix was in at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.” Banking panel aides refused to say how they obtained the letter.
Keating is chairman of a holding company that owned Lincoln Savings and Loan Assn., Irvine, Calif. It failed in April and is expected to require the nation’s costliest S&L; bailout, about $2 billion.
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