Executives from the bailed-out Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs faced tough questioning on Tuesday at a Senate hearing on their role in the financial crisis. Current and former Goldman officials were grilled on their aggressive marketing of mortgage investments at the same time the firm was betting the investments would fail. During his opening remarks, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan cited internal Goldman documents to argue the firm had betrayed its clients.

Sen. Carl Levin: “The firm’s own documents show that while it was marketing risky mortgage-related securities, it was placing large bets against the US mortgage market. The firm has repeatedly denied making those large bets despite overwhelming evidence that they did so. Now why does that matter? Surely there is no law, ethical guideline or moral injunction against profit. But Goldman Sachs didn’t just make money. It profited by taking advantage of its clients’ reasonable expectation that it would not sell products that it did not want to succeed.”