WH Hunkers Down as More Chrysler Threats Emerge

The reports started to leak last week with Tom Lauria appearance on the Frank Beckman show where he claimed that the White House threatened to sic the WH Press Corps on the non tarp investors if they didn't go along with the plan to give primary investors much less than their share, and the UAW much more than their share of whats left of Chrysler.

Earlier this week a different participant in negotiations said that the administration's tactic was to present what one described as a "madman theory of the presidency" in which the President is someone to be feared because he was willing to do anything to get his way. The person said this threat was taken very seriously by his firm.


The Business Insider has been contacting the WH since the report broke to get a comment on the new charge, they have been strangely silent.  They should also ask about the brand new report of a threat that the Business Insider found:

The White House Is Now Refusing To Respond To Chrysler Threat Stories
John Carney

Earlier this week, we ran a number of stories about how Steve Rattner allegedly threatened hedge funds that refused to drop their opposition to the Obama administration's Chrysler plan.

We asked the White House to comment, and after three days it has become apparent that they have no plans to respond. The White House has denied earlier charges that it threatened to use the White House press corps to ruin the reputation of a firm that was opposing its Chrysler plans.

By refusing to comment on our subsequent story about additional threats, the White House appears to be backing away from its earlier denial. If the threats weren't made, why not just repeat the earlier denial? That would be easy enough.

And we didn't even ask them about the even more serious charges that the financial blog Finem Respice has made:

Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less than that to which it was legally entitled without compelling cause, this country's "Car Czar" berated the manager of said fund with an outburst of prose substantially resembling this:

Who the fuck do you think you're dealing with? We'll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with.