NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The campaign to get Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in front of a congressional panel to discuss his relationship with American International Group Inc. in 2008 may have an unlikely supporter: Geithner.

By the looks of it last week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) struck what could have been the most damaging blow to the Treasury Secretary's career since he took office last year. See Bloomberg report on Geithner and AIG.

Issa, who has been critical of Geithner, released emails showing that officials at the regional Fed bank told AIG not to disclose key details of their agreements to make big payouts to banks in late 2008. AIG AIG, +0.87% later had to amend its regulatory filings to provide the disclosure. See report on New York Fed and AIG.

Rep. Darrell Issa

Issa fueled the fire by suggesting Geithner -- or his team -- tried to cover up the payments.

"Geithner's team was concerned about the controversy that full disclosure of the payments would create," Issa wrote in the Huffington Post. "So the New York Fed instructed AIG to delete references to the counterparty payment rate from its SEC filing, thus obscuring the full measure of the bailout bonanza made possible by U.S. taxpayers." See Issa commentary on Huffington Post.

The accusation against Geithner not only set off alarms in Congress but in the media. Read commentary on Geithner's role.

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That led to Treasury officials and Thomas Baxter Jr., the general counsel of the New York Fed, to come to the Treasury Secretary's defense.

Geithner "played no role in, and had no knowledge of, the disclosure deliberations and communications referenced in those emails," Baxter wrote, throwing the AIG grenade back to Rep. Issa who only was able to say Baxter "raises more questions."

Here's one: Does the congressman have the goods or not?

-- David Weidner