He was a career staffer in the international affairs division of the Treasury Department in the early 1990s when then-undersecretary Lawrence H. Summers noticed and promoted him. By the end of the Clinton administration, Summers was Treasury secretary and [Tim] Geithner was an undersecretary. Now, Obama is apparently passing over Summers for his onetime protege, though Summers is also said to be returning to government as a White House adviser.
In congressional testimony following the March rescue of Bear Stearns, Geithner and other officials faced tough questions about their actions. An angry Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) demanded to know how the financial system became so fragile. The chairman of the Fed, a Treasury undersecretary and the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission sat silently.
Geithner responded: “What produced this is a very complicated mix of factors. I don’t think anybody understands it yet. But we have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how to get a better handle on this sort of stuff . . . because it’s very important that we try to figure out a way to make this system less vulnerable to this in the future.”