Of the negotiations between his company and the government in December, he was expected to say that “people of good intentions, in both the private sector and the government, worked desperately hard in late 2008 to prevent a collapse of the global financial system.”

Portions of e-mail messages sent among Fed staff members paint a picture of the strong pressure regulators put on Mr. Lewis’s company to complete the deal, even after Merrill’s financial state weakened. The Fed hired Pimco, the giant bond house, to evaluate the state of the two companies separately, and Pimco concluded that Merrill’s “deterioration has been substantially worse than” Bank of America’s. Pimco also found that Merrill would not be able to survive on its own without new capital or additional government aid.

Image Lawmakers want to question Ben Bernanke about Merrill. Credit... Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News

The documents obtained by The Times include memorandums prepared by staff members on the House committee, as well as Mr. Lewis’s planned testimony.

Republican lawmakers on the committee are pressing for another hearing so they can question the two officials who have already been associated publicly with the heated discussions late last year, Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, and Henry M. Paulson, the former secretary of the Treasury.

The documents also included notes taken by Bank of America’s chief financial officer, suggesting that Lawrence H. Summers, now the president’s lead economics adviser, and Timothy F. Geithner, the secretary of the Treasury, agreed that Merrill should not be allowed to fail. A spokesman for Mr. Geithner, who was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said it was not true that he had agreed. Spokesmen for Mr. Summers and Mr. Geithner said neither was involved in discussion about Bank of America at that time.

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment on the documents, which he said he had not seen. But, Larry Di Rita, the spokesman, said that the deal was working, adding “we’re looking forward.” The Federal Reserve declined to comment.