A lawyer who represented Lehman Brothers in subpoena matters regarding the collapsed firm’s bankruptcy proceedings is hosting a fundraiser for Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Russ Feingold on Friday.
Feingold, the former anti-Wall Street senator from Wisconsin, will be attending the upwards of $1,000 per head fundraiser at the home of Haben Goitom, a current in-house attorney for utility company Alliant Energy located in Madison, Wis., Before moving over to Alliant Energy, Goitom was an attorney at the law firm Jones Day and part of a team that represented Lehman Brothers in 2011.
After the institution spent millions lobbying the federal government leading up to their inevitable bankruptcy filing in 2008, considered the largest bankruptcy proceeding in history, they began serving subpoenas to several financial firms in order to "conduct an internal examination of events leading to the massive bankruptcy proceedings it launched in September 2008." Earlier, in April 2010, Lehman issued a similar subpoena to Goldman Sachs seeking to "back up its claims that Goldman tried to tarnish Lehman’s reputation in order to speed up its financial descent and turn a profit by selling Lehman securities short."
Feingold, who regularly chastised big banks while in the Senate, will still attend the fundraiser despite Goithom’s previous representation.
While serving in the Senate, Feingold voted against the bank bailout in 2008—just two weeks after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. Feingold co-sponsored a bill in 2009 to "strengthen the law requiring employers to notify workers and communities of mass layoffs" in which the press release singled out Lehman Brothers as one such employer.
Additionally, Feingold was the lone Democratic senator to vote against President Obama’s Wall Street reform bill, stating the bill was not "strong enough" and "caved in" to Wall Street.