Oh, yes.
Not one…but two former bankers with close ties to President Obama. (This from a President who’s been publically quite critical of bankers in recent months.)
We posted earlier that Alexi Giannoulias was visiting the Obama White House today as a part of a celebration of Greek heritage. Giannoulias is facing yet another round of questions back in Illinois about the beleaguered family business Broadway Bank. In a series of interviews last week (although not with Fox News)…Giannoulias says Broadway (which lost $75-million last year) would not likely survive.
Before getting elected state treasurer (with then-Senator Obama’s endorsement)…Giannoulias was a senior loan officer at Broadway Bank. In fact…Giannoulias ran a TV ad during that 2006 campaign which Senator Obama appeared and spoke about how in a State Treasurer people need “somebody who knows how money works…and how to manage it…and makes sound investments.”
The White House also put out a list today of four business people President Obama was hosting at a working lunch where the talk would be about the economy and job creation. One of those business leaders was Penny Pritzker.
She also was a banker. The institution was Superior Bank based in the Chicago suburb of Hinsdale. Pritzker (of the billionaire Pritzker family) was in fact part owner of Superior. The bank failed in 2001. The FDIC says the reason for the bank demise was that it was too heavily involved in one-kind of lending…sub-prime mortgages and automobile loans. Superior’s undoing was one of the biggest bank failures in the nation’s history…at the time.
Years later, Pritzker signed on to raise money for State Senator Barack Obama’s seemingly improbable bid for a US Senate seat. Four years after that, Pritzker was Finance Chairwoman for Obama’s presidential bid. Later in 2008, she was co-chair of the Obama Tranisition.
So…there you have it. Two former-bankers at the White House. One of their banks gone…the other…headed in the same direction.