Obama in Effort to Undo Bonuses at A.I.G.

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and JACKIE CALMES

NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — President Obama and his top economic advisers scrambled to calm a nationwide furor on Monday over bonuses paid at the American International Group, even as administration officials acknowledged they had known about the issue for months.
One day after the economic advisers insisted that their hands had been tied by contracts requiring the payments, Mr. Obama ordered the Treasury Department to “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses” and make the American taxpayers whole.

“In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”

But as anger from lawmakers escalated and criticism of the retention bonuses overshadowed other news for a second consecutive day, White House and Treasury officials offered only a general sense of how they would carry out Mr. Obama’s order and few explanations for why they had not acted earlier.

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photo: President Obama told Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses.” (Doug Mills/The New York Times)