AP reports that Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Linda Thomsen is leaving the agency less than a week after receiving an angry dressing-down before Congress over the agency’s failure to detect the $50 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly run by money manager Bernard Madoff.
Thomsen was front and center at a Feb. 4 hearing by a House subcommittee investigating the Madoff affair and the enforcement breakdown at the SEC. She was put on the defensive by lawmakers and forced to defend the SEC's position that she and other officials couldn't publicly discuss details of the matter because of an ongoing investigation by the agency's inspector general.