Barofsky, TARP’s Watchdog, to Join Jenner & Block
Neil Barofsky, the former prosecutor who brought transparency and accountability to the federal government’s 2008 bank bailout program as its first special inspector general, has joined Jenner & Block, a law firm based in Chicago, as a partner.
Mr. Barofsky, who was appointed by President Obama to oversee the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program in late 2008, was a Washington outsider whose periodic reports on the program questioned Treasury officials’ claims of its effectiveness. He and his office drew criticism at times from those officials, as a result.
Mr. Barofsky left his post in 2011 to teach at New York University’s law school. He also wrote “Bailout,” a scathing account of his time in Washington that highlighted the problem of regulators who he said were for the most part captured by the institutions they were supposed to police.