Andrew Cuomo on the Attack

Andrew Cuomo, NY State's Attorney General and until recently one of the frontrunners for the just-filled New York Senate seat, has subpoenaed John Thain. Thain is the ex-Merrill Lynch CEO who allegedly authorized bonus payments worth some $3 billion mere days before Merrill was acquired by Bank of America.

Problems at Merrill Lynch have been a primary cause of Bank of America's current problems, which have led to BoA requesting billions of dollars in bailout money. Indeed, Merrill Lynch's losses, according to the New York Times, were more than $15 billion. Those losses are now on BoA's books. Aware of the losses, Thain nonetheless doled out the company-wide bonuses before BoA could do anything to stop them.

Cuomo wants to find out why the bonuses were paid out nearly a month earlier than they had been in previous years. I don't know the specific legal issues involved, but I'm guessing that it's probably not OK to knowingly give out billions of dollars in bonuses when your company is losing money by the fistful, knowing full well that taxpayers are going to be on the hook.

This makes me really despise Thain.

It also makes me like Cuomo. I wasn’t a big fan of Caroline Kennedy and I don’t know much about Kirsten Gillibrand, but Cuomo seems to be more than competent at his job. He was the one who took the lead in investigating the Long Island Railroad retirement scandal, which has actually led to charges against ex-L.I.R.R. officials.

After the recent Senate appointment debacle, Gov. Paterson is the one who comes out looking like a doofus. Cuomo is untainted by Paterson’s screw-up and he’s now out with his guns blazing. Not a bad day’s work for the current AG and potentially soon-to-be-governor-of-New York.