DOJ, SEC Investigate S&P, EE-I-EE-I-O

It's not just S&P, it's Moody's too:

The U.S. Justice Department is probing Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s over ratings of mortgage-backed securities, according to three former employees who said they were interviewed by investigators.

Washington-based lawyers from the Justice Department spoke to former employees as recently as last month about whether the companies raised their grades for the complex investments in order to win business, said the former employees, who asked for anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. The inquiry is a civil matter, two of them said.

The probe is the latest of dozens of government investigations and investor lawsuits targeting Moody’s and S&P, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos., all based in New York, over the top grades they assigned to bonds backed by subprime mortgages. Even as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission called them “key enablers of the financial meltdown,” the raters avoided legal liability, according to Benchmark Co.’s Edward Atorino.

Note there that the DoJ being involved means that this is some sort of criminal investigation.

Here's hoping that Eric "Place" Holder doesn't decide to look forward instead of backward.