The White House said Tuesday it was confident in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's oversight of the financial rescue plan amid widespread fury over millions of dollars in bonuses troubled insurance giant American International Group (AIG) gave to executives after receiving federal emergency loans. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama has confidence in Geithner and the Treasury Department's oversight. But he stressed that Obama is working as quickly as possible with Congress to find ways to block the bonuses at AIG or recoup that money. Gibbs tried to move the focus to bigger reforms in the future. He said Obama wants both financial regulation reform and a new “resolution authority” to deal with big institutions like AIG that are in complex financial trouble. In a daily briefing dominated by reporters' questions about AIG, Gibbs had no answers for many matters, including when Obama learned about the executive bonuses and why the president did not discuss them until they became public over the weekend.
