Goldman Sachs, Securities Fraud | featured news

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired Reid Weingarten, a high-profile Washington defense attorney whose past clients include a former Enron accounting officer, according to a government source familiar with the matter.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc could release documents to counter a Senate subcommittee report that said the bank misled clients about mortgage-linked securities, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

A Senate investigation into the financial crisis has found that Goldman Sachs, the storied Wall Street investment bank, sought to profit from the historic decline in housing prices by betting against the US mortgage market.

Goldman Sachs said Tuesday its first-quarter earnings almost doubled to $3.3 billion as its trading business again surpassed the rest of the financial industry. A top lawyer for the bank, which is facing civil fraud charges, said Goldman would "never intentionally mislead anyone."

Representative Barney Frank said on Monday that securities regulators' fraud case against Goldman Sachs increases the chance that financial reform will pass.

In a civil suit filed Friday, the S.E.C. accused the investment bank of securities fraud over a deal in which Goldman profited from bets against products it sold to customers.