Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft - A Leading Law Firm!

As the loyal reader of this blog will tell you, we respect Cadwalader.

I love saying it: Cadwalader. Cadwalader Wickersham. Cadwalader Wickersham and Taft.

Its just sounds fancy.

Anyhoo, with all those high powered lawyers, why the heck is Cadwalader so scared to appear before a Congressional Oversight Panel investigating the use of private contractors by the Treasury Department for work related to the TARP program?

Just because Cadwalader received legal fees of 27.5 million in TARP funds to advise Treasury regarding the companies to which it should dole out the money, while also representing corporate clients to whom Treasury doled out TARP funds, does seem like a basis to ruin the firm's reputation by starting to invoke the 5th amendment and hide behind the attorney client privilege. I mean, "does not."

Hey - did you know that W. Christopher White, the new Chairman of Cadwalader, is the brother-in-law of Treasury's bailout Czar Steven Rattner, who I guess helped decide which law firms would get the TARP work?

Really.

NB How did I know that Dick Cheney was involved?