In three hours of grueling questions from lawmakers armed with e-mail messages and internal documents, the Fed chairman flatly denied accusations that he had threatened to oust the bank\u2019s top management if it pulled out of the deal.<\/p>\n
He also denied that the Fed had maneuvered to postpone public disclosures about Merrill Lynch\u2019s spiraling losses until after the merger was completed on Dec. 30, and he denied that Fed officials had kept other financial regulators in the dark about plans to bail out Bank of America in January.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Bernanke did not appear to satisfy lawmakers from either party. Republicans accused Mr. Bernanke of strong-arming a private company, which one lawmaker called \u201csocialistic.\u201d\u009d Democrats complained that Mr. Bernanke had not been tough enough, and had perhaps been bamboozled into bailing out Bank of America.<\/p>\n