From The Washington Examiner:
House asks: Did Obama's auto bailout chief say, 'I did this all for the unions'. The House asked Bloom outright that very question, and Bloom denied it outright:
Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) questions Mr. Ron Bloom, former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, on whether Mr. Bloom had said at a farewell dinner of the Auto Task Force in late July 2009, "I did this all for the unions." Mr. Bloom denied the quote...
However, two independent sources have documented Bloom saying those exact words. Back to the Examiner piece, a local connection:
On November 24, 2009, Detroit News reporter David Shepardson wrote about a dinner held at Washington's Rosa Mexicano restaurant in July of that year, after GM had come out of bankruptcy. Both Bloom and Steven Rattner, the Wall Street figure who played a key role in the bailouts, spoke to the group. "Rattner praised the team's intensity and focus and said the group was among the best he had ever worked with," Shepardson reported. "Bloom, the former adviser to the United Steelworkers, joked that he 'did this all for the unions.'" (The article is not available on the paper's website, but here is a copy of it on a United Auto Workers site.)
In September 2010, Rattner published a book entitled Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry. He also described the dinner at Rosa Mexicano:
...Fortunately, after I spoke, Ron Bloom was there to lighten the mood. "I did this all for the unions," he jokingly declared. Everyone laughed and the war stories began to fly…
So the exact same quote by two independent sources, one claiming it was in a joking manner and one not, but the exact same words nonetheless. So back to Blooms appearance on the Hill June 22:
Rep. Burton: Well, did you say this at a dinner? There was a dinner and it was reported by David Shepardson, Washington correspondent for the Detroit News. At a farewell dinner of the Auto Task Force held in the restaurant Rosa Mexicano in late July 2009 that you allegedly said "I did this all for the unions."
Mr. Bloom: No I did not say that.
Rep. Burton: You didn't say that?
Mr. Bloom: No sir.
Rep. Burton: So, you were misquoted?
Mr. Bloom: That's correct.
Rep. Burton: Well, I'm going to call that guy up and ask him if you said that. You know that you are under oath here?
Mr. Bloom: I'm fully aware.
Rep. Burton: You made no comment like that at all?
Mr. Bloom: No sir.
So did he or didn't he? The above is a flat-out denial rather than Clintonian obfuscation. Two sources confirm it, but there's also this:
... ABC News reports that a White House source is referring reporters to Rattner's book, adding that Rattner "clearly writes that Bloom made the comment as a joke."
That has Republicans on Capitol Hill confused. "Bloom is denying having said it in the first place, but the White House is saying it's just a joke," says a Hill source. "Well, you can't have it both ways."
Now Issa has written a letter to Bloom, giving him "an opportunity to clarify" his testimony to the committee. "Despite your five denials, two independent sources documented you saying these words," Issa wrote. "It appears that either a respected reporter and your former boss in the Obama administration have both given inaccurate accounts of your comments to the public, or your testimony was not completely truthful. ..."
Anyone have the audio out there?
UPDATE: More coverage from the hearings:
Burton: There Is No Shared Pain For GM Salaried Workers Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) questions Mr. Ron Bloom, former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, on the drastic cuts to the benefits of the salaried workers versus those under contract.