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“resolvinG tHe Crisis; restorinG tHe ConfiDenCe”
was very little, if anything, inculpatory that was likely to be found among the hundreds of thousands of loans (and therefore millions of pieces of paper evidencing those loans) that Home Fed had made. Of course, we also pleaded that lack of access to the loan documents would seriously hamper our efforts to dispose of the institution’s assets swiftly, which we were charged by Congress to do. However, DOJ, which was very con- cerned about being criticized for not preserving vital evidence of possible fraud by Home Fed officers, and presumably desirous of main- taining the chain of custody of what might turn out to be critical pieces of evidence, could not be budged. They merely reiterated their position that not one piece of paper could be removed. When I say not one piece of paper, I mean not one piece of paper. Guess who prevailed in the discussion. One accommodation was struck, however: under the watch- ful eyes of attorneys from the Criminal Division, we could remove nothing, but we were permitted to put the entire institution through a Xerox machine!
It was months before we would be able to start the retrieval, sorting, and triaging process that necessarily preceded actual sales.
Washington, by George (and Bill)
The RTC offices were at 17th and H Streets N.W., just north of the White House and the Executive Office Building, which were within very easy walking distance. On my first day at the RTC, I was taken to lunch at the FDIC dining room (west of the EOB). Getting there involved crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, but, just as I was about to step off the curb, there was the wail of sirens, followed by a squadron of motorcycles carrying uniformed officers, a line of black Secret Service vehicles that seemed to go on forever, and then the limousine in which sat President George Herbert Walker Bush. We must have been held on the corner for a full ten minutes while the world stopped and the motor- cade passed. This was exciting: the real deal. I was in Washington! I turned to the man who was taking me to lunch and asked him whether
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