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Reports: ?An Issue During His Vetting Process? Keeps Cohen From Joining Treasury

By Ashby Jones

Think the Yankees without Derek Jeter. The Stones without Mick. “24″ without Jack Bauer.

We might be pushing it here, but that’s how we’d feel about a Rodge Cohen-less Sullivan & Cromwell. The banking lawyer extraordinare had been reportedly mulling an invitation to join Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s team down in D.C. The latest: Rodge will stay put. Here are stories from the WSJ, Bloomberg, and the WaPo.

So what’s behind Rodge’s not packing up and moving to the Beltway? He’s not talking. But the WaPo and others are reporting that “Cohen dropped out after the White House found an issue during his vetting process.”

The WaPo gives no indication as to what those issues might be. But that didn’t stop Tom Blumer at NewsBusters from giving his best educated guess:

Over the years, the man appears to have accumulated quite a list of bruised feelings, grudge-holding enemies, and politically problematic involvements. Taken as a whole, I believe they would have called into question not only his ability to oversee the banking and financial sectors impartially and in the country’s best interests, but also the degree of support he would have had from his own party if he were to stumble even slightly.

The reasoning notwithstanding, the WaPo reports that the thin ranks at Treasury are “taking a toll on the department’s ability to deal with a financial crisis that continues to deepen in scope and complexity, government and industry officials say.”

Gus O’Donnell, a British official, was quoted this week in news reports saying it has been “unbelievably difficult” to talk to people at the U.S. Treasury: “There is nobody there.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).