ABCNews' Matthew Jaffe reports:
According to testimony prepared for a hearing Thursday on the financial bailout, the program's Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky is expected to tell Congress that the Treasury Department's “basic attitude towards transparency…remains a significant frustration.”
Once the hearing started, one lawmaker felt that frustration first-hand, denouncing as useless and unclear the testimony from Treasury official Herb Allison, who oversees the $700 billion TARP.
“This hearing has not been very useful. Those have not been very clear responses,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) about 45 minutes into Allison's testimony. “Maybe that's just the way it is, but I look forward to the next panel.”
The panel's chairman, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, then noted sarcastically, “But the questions are valuable.”
-Matthew Jaffe
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