N.J. senator pleaded for firm bailout : Bankruptcy of CIT gobbled up $2.3 billion in taxpayer money

USA Today reports:

During the depths of the financial crisis in 2008, a member of the Senate Banking Committee urged the Treasury Department to provide bailout money to a struggling financial firm whose eventual collapse cost taxpayers $2.3 billion, newly released records show.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., wrote to Henry Paulson, then secretary of the Treasury Department, in support of CIT Group, a New Jersey-based lender to businesses such as retail stores. Menendez touted CIT's importance to New Jersey and the nation and said the company "provided strong evidence" its finances were sound, according to a copy of the letter released last month under the Freedom of Information Act.

Constituent service to some: is looting the taxpayers to others.