S.&P., in Lawsuit Defense, Seeks Documents About Obama-Geithner Meetings

For Timothy F. Geithner, the former Treasury secretary, meetings with President Obama were nothing out of the ordinary.
But one such meeting has taken on outsize significance for Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency that is defending itself against the government’s claims of fraud.

S.&P. has argued that the fraud lawsuit was “retaliation” for its downgrade of United States long-term debt in August 2011, when the country lost its sterling AAA rating for the first time.

The ratings firm is now seeking any documents detailing a meeting between Mr. Geithner and Mr. Obama that occurred shortly before Mr. Geithner had an angry phone call with the chairman of S.&P.’s parent company, according to court filings on Monday.

The firm, using records of Mr. Geithner’s calendar, is zeroing in on a meeting that took place from 9:30 to 10:10 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2011, just days after the downgrade, according to the documents filed in United States District Court for the Central District of California. Five minutes after that meeting ended, S.&P. says, Mr. Geithner called Harold W. McGraw III, the chairman of McGraw Hill Financial, to express his displeasure with the downgrade.

S.&P. says that if it obtains documents about this meeting, as well as about two similar meetings surrounding it, the information might help the company bolster its defense.

The meeting on the morning of Aug. 8 came shortly before Mr. Geithner told Mr. McGraw that the conduct of S.&P. would be “looked at very carefully,” according to the latest filings and an affidavit by Mr. McGraw in January. The Treasury secretary told Mr. McGraw that S.&P. had made an error in its assessment and that “you are accountable for that,” according to the affidavit.

The government has previously rejected S.&P.’s line of argument as “preposterous.” A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not immediately have a comment on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Geithner, Jenni R. LeCompte, referred on Tuesday to an earlier statement, in which she said: “The allegation that former Secretary Geithner threatened or took any action to prompt retaliatory government action against S.&P. is false.”

S.&P. says it is being unfairly singled out by the government, which claimed in 2013 that the company had inflated the ratings of mortgage investments, setting them up for a crash when the financial crisis struck. S.&P. introduced its “retaliation” defense after trying unsuccessfully to get the lawsuit dismissed.

In its latest filing, S.&P. is seeking more than just documents about the meetings. It also wants a preview of Mr. Geithner’s forthcoming memoirs.

The company said it wanted “any documents, including manuscripts, notes, drafts, audio or video recordings, interviews or transcripts of interviews, relating to or constituting all or any portion of Mr. Geithner’s forthcoming book” relating to a discussion of S.&P. or a downgrade of United States debt.