Lawmakers Probing if Obama Administration Meddled With S&P Rating

A congressional panel is investigating whether the Obama Administration tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P’s news release announcing the negative outlook revision of the US credit rating.
Reuters reported:

A congressional panel is examining whether the Obama administration tried to unduly influence Standard & Poor’s before the credit rater revised its outlook on the debt rating to negative.

Randy Neugebauer, the Republican chairman of a House oversight panel, said on Wednesday his staff is probing whether Treasury tried to make material changes to a draft of S&P’s news release announcing the negative outlook revision in April.

“Our concern was if the administration was trying to influence this rating decision some — above what would be a normal practice,” Neugebauer told reporters after a hearing examining oversight of the credit rating industry and the role the raters are playing in U.S. debt talks.

S&P has been the most aggressive of the “big three” credit rating agencies in threatening to downgrade the United States’ triple-A rating unless Congress agrees to a credible and meaningful deficit-reduction plan.

U.S. lawmakers are trying to reach a deal by August 2 to both raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt limit and lay out an aggressive framework to cut federal spending.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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