Bernanke Defends Lehman Actions to His ‘Deathbed’
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Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in a confidential talk with the commission probing the causes of the financial crisis, said he would defend to his “deathbed” his actions prior to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
“I will maintain to my deathbed, that we made every effort to save Lehman, but we were just unable to do so because of a lack of legal authority,” Bernanke said, referring to the 2008 failure that intensified a crisis that Bernanke said was the worst in history, according to an 89-page transcript of the interview by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.