ThinkProgress examined the financial documents Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) filed with the House Clerk and discovered that while the congressman was fighting to block a federal investigation of Goldman Sachs, he "
went on a buying spree of high yield Goldman Sachs bonds".
In April 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a civil suit against Goldman Sachs charging the bank of "defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter".
Immediately, Issa "raised hell... to stop the federal government from investigating Goldman Sachs". In his role as the House Oversight Committee chair, he and other House Republicans fired off a letter (pdf) to SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro alleging the "timing" of the SEC lawsuit "created serious questions about the Commission's independence and impartiality."
Meanwhile, ThinkProgress found:
From February to December of 2010, Issa bought 12 Goldman Sachs High Yield Fund Class A bonds, each worth up to $50,000 (view page 10 the disclosure here). Many of the bonds were purchased in the months after he filed his letter to the SEC. The $600,000 in new Goldman Sachs investments added to Issa’s multimillion dollar accounts managed by the company, valued from $5.1 to $15.5 million.
This will come as a shock, but Issa's allegations turned out to be "completely bunk". An investigation by the SEC inspector general cleared the commission of any wrongdoing in October 2010. The report, however, did criticize the SEC for not tipping off Goldman Sachs before the announcement that a fraud charge was imminent against the firm. "SEC officials were concerned about Goldman's own press strategy", which it would seem that Issa played a significant part in implementing. "Goldman at first said it was innocent and complained that the case had taken it by surprise."
Issa’s investigation of the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs stole the headlines and reinforced Goldman Sach’s claim that they had done nothing wrong. Explaining his defense of Goldman Sachs, Issa said he was representing the views of ordinary Americans who are worried about the “growth of government and the growth of government wanting to become more complex, with more agencies and more control over our lives.”
In July 2010, Goldman Sachs agreed to a pay meager $550 million penalty to settle the charges and did not admit to or deny any wrongdoing on their part. Rep. Issa "faced little to no blowback for being dead wrong", ThinkProgress adds. Despite the congressman's history of using his political power to enrich himself and his family. Meanwhile, "ordinary Americans" are still being screwed by the richest member of Congress and predatory banks on Wall Street.