Ex-Goldman exec scrutinized for economic development post

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former top Goldman Sachs executive tapped to oversee economic development policy in Connecticut and lauded by Gov. Ned Lamont for his caliber of financial and investment experience, finds himself answering a lot of questions about his role in the mortgage meltdown of 2007-08.

Since his nomination last month, David Lehman has spent hours talking publicly and privately to lawmakers about his time as co-head of the investment bank's Structured Products Group Trading Desk and other positions at Goldman over the past 15 years, and whether he shares any responsibility for the revolving door of toxic mortgages that led to the crisis.

While a new governor's cabinet appointments are typically given deference by lawmakers, Lamont's fellow Democrats in the state Senate, where Lehman still awaits confirmation, have raised some of the loudest concerns about whether he is the best choice.

"He was there at that time and employed in the division that was involved in a lot of the decisions that proved to be so damaging for other investors," said Martin Looney, the Democratic Senate president pro tem, of New Haven, who said legislative attorneys are poring over a roughly 550-page U.S. Senate investigation into the financial crisis, which led to a deep economic recession.

Lehman actually testified publicly in 2010 before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a congressional panel that spent more than a year reviewing the causes of the meltdown, about his role in a dispute between Goldman and AIG over how much the collateral the insurance giant needed.

Lehman has tried to assure state lawmakers, who ultimately decide whether he gets the state job, that he did nothing untoward while co-heading the mortgage trading unit.

"I did not know, at the time, that those securities were going to be worthless," Lehman...