House Democrats on Tuesday demanded an independent inquiry into the Federal Reserve’s decision to bail out big banks with taxpayer money, as they continue to push for the Justice Department to launch an investigation into the bailout.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to release a draft report on Wednesday that could shed light on the Fed’s bailout of two of the nation’s biggest banks, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
But while the Senate Banking Committee has already opened an investigation of the Fed, the House Oversight Committee has not.
House Democrats have demanded a probe into whether the Fed improperly helped banks during the financial crisis.
The committee’s Democrats said Tuesday that the Justice Dept. should look into the matter and whether the bailout went far enough.
The Democrats’ demand for an independent investigation is in contrast to the Justice Departments decision last month to open an investigation and report to Congress.
The Fed also announced in January that it would launch an internal review of its role in the bailout of the two banks.
Democrats also have called on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to launch a probe of the bailout as well, but the bank regulator said in a statement Monday that the bank would not be conducting an investigation.
“The FDIC does not investigate, and has no plans to investigate, whether any of the financial institutions that received taxpayer bailout funds were in fact involved in wrongdoing,” FDIC spokeswoman Catherine Richey said in the statement.
“We will continue to work with Congress and the administration to address this issue, and are pleased that we are able to work together on important policy issues.”
Democrats said they will hold a press conference Wednesday at 3 p.m.
ET to ask the Fed to launch the investigation into whether or not the bailout was enough to keep banks from imploding.