Obama Could Go to Jail for Meddling With S&P Downgrade of U.S. Credit Rating

Lawmakers Probing if Obama Administration Meddled With S&P Rating
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 8:29 PM
  
A congressional panel is investigating whether the Obama Administration tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P’s news release announcing the negative outlook revision of the US credit rating.
Reuters reported:
A congressional panel is examining whether the Obama administration tried to unduly influence Standard & Poor’s before the credit rater revised its outlook on the debt rating to negative.
Randy Neugebauer, the Republican chairman of a House oversight panel, said on Wednesday his staff is probing whether Treasury tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P’s news release announcing the negative outlook revision in April.
“Our concern was if the administration was trying to influence this rating decision some — above what would be a normal practice,” Neugebauer told reporters after a hearing examining oversight of the credit rating industry and the role the raters are playing in U.S. debt talks.
S&P has been the most aggressive of the “big three” credit rating agencies in threatening to downgrade the United States’ triple-A rating unless Congress agrees to a credible and meaningful deficit-reduction plan.