Geithner Chief of Staff was Goldman Sachs Lobbyist

[Cross posted to DailyKos]

The morning’s New York Times confirms that Treasury Secretary Geithner has picked Mark Patterson as his chief of staff, paradoxically within a story about Geithner’s announcement of new “rules to ‘combat lobbyist influence’ over the bailout program. . . .”

Who is Mark Patterson? He has a Democratic pedigree, having served as staff of Senator Moynihan and Senator Dasschle. But most recently, from 2003 until April of 2008, he served as a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, serving as the “co-head of U.S. government relations” for at least part of that time.

So is making a high-profile announcement about “combating lobbyist influence” just one of those “head fakes,” to throw the activists off, or do we really need someone who was right in the belly of the beast to understand how to tame the beast?

I’ll reserve judgment on this new Treasury Secretary and his team until their fruits start becoming obvious, but I have to say that it doesn’t look good to me so far.

What did Mr. Patterson work on as a Goldman Sachs lobbyist?

According to Implu Corporation which tracks the activities of major corporation executives at least part of his portfolio was lobbying the banking committees on the following bills:

H.R. 3915, MORTGAGE REFORM AND ANTI-PREDATORY LENDING ACT OF 2007, ALL SECTIONS

H.R. 3609, EMERGENCY HOME OWNERSHIP AND MORTGAGE EQUITY PROTECTION ACT OF 2007, ALL SECTIONS

S. 2452, HOME OWNERSHIP PRESERVATION AND PROTECTION ACT OF 2007, ALL SECTIONS

H.R. 3221, FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT OF 2008, ALL SECTIONS; S. 2636, FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT OF 2008, ALL SECTIONS; MARKET CONDITIONS

S. 2636, FORECLOSURE PREVENTION ACT OF 2008, ALL SECTIONS

I’m just guessing here, but as a Goldman Sachs lobbyist I don’t imagine he was on the side of making sure that assignee liability stayed in the anti-predatory lending bill, or on the side of allowing bankruptcy judges to “cram down” mortgage principle on bad mortgages.