Goldman Sachs Group Inc. misled clients and Congress about the firm’s investments in securities tied to mortgages, the chairman of the Senate panel that investigated the causes of the financial crisis said. Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry, said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt obligations without knowing the firm was betting they would fall in value.
The Michigan Democrat also said federal prosecutors should consider perjury charges against Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein and others who testified in Congress last year. Levin said they denied under oath that the firm took a financial position against the mortgage market solely for its own profit.
“In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress,” Levin said at a press briefing today where he and Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, discussed the 640-page report from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Much of the blame for the 2008 market collapse belongs to banks that earned billions of dollars in profits creating and selling financial products that imploded along with the housing market, according to the report.
