And, BTW, Paulson’s Evil Minions^™ include the then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner.

Judicial watch is a bunch of nuts right-wing, or maybe they are a bunch right-wing of squirrels who collect nuts, but every now and then amongst their nuts (FOIA requests) they turn up a gem, and this time, it appears to be a doozy.

Basically, they have the memos about the initial TARP, and it is clear from them that Hank Paulson told the banks that they had no choice about letting the US government buy equity in them(See also here and here):

“We don’t believe it is tenable to opt out because doing so would leave you vulnerable and exposed. If a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware your regulator will require it in any circumstance,” the document said, citing Paulson talking points.

One of the things of interest here (see the Scribd Window) is that Hank Paulson’s chief of staff did not know who the “big 9 banks” were….The Secretary of the Treasury‘s chief of staff did not know who the big 10 banks were?

Great googly moogly.

Treasury CEO Talking Points v1

Note that the Scribd link is from Market Ticker, who also notes that according to AIG President Edward Liddy, the Federal Reserve insisted that all Credit Default Swaps at 100¢ on the dollar (CSPAN video Link at about 2:25:00)