The Best that Can Be Expected………

I guess it was inevitable that former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky would have to find work.

Considering his background, taking a position in a large white shoe law firm tied in with finance was very likely and Jenner & Block appears to be much less evil than many of their competitors:

Neil Barofsky, the former prosecutor who brought transparency and accountability to the federal government’s 2008 bank bailout program as its first special inspector general, has joined Jenner & Block, a law firm based in Chicago, as a partner.

Mr. Barofsky, who was appointed by George W. Bush to oversee the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program in late 2008, was a Washington outsider whose periodic reports on the program questioned Treasury officials’ claims of its effectiveness. He and his office drew criticism at times from those officials, as a result.

Mr. Barofsky left his post in 2011 to teach at New York University’s law school. He also wrote “Bailout,” a scathing account of his time in Washington that highlighted the problem of regulators who he said were for the most part captured by the institutions they were supposed to police.

In an interview, Mr. Barofsky said that joining Jenner & Block was a natural next step because the firm specialized in helping government agencies and major corporations with in-depth investigations of problematic practices. Such investigations, he said, are similar to the work he did at TARP. In addition, unlike many other large law firms, Jenner & Block represents clients bringing suits against large financial institutions.

“I can bring my experience investigating large financial institutions and complex financial transactions to a place that doesn’t just do defense work in this area,” Mr. Barofsky said. “This is an opportunity in private practice to help improve governance and have a truth-seeking role.”

Well, we'll see how this goes, and he has done a real service in reporting on the corruption of the TARP as IG, and in his book about the experience, Bailout, which has probably earned him the undying enmity of Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, and Barack Obama, and he deserves a lot of credit and a not inconsiderable payday, for that.