Late on New Year's Eve, James Lambright, a Treasury Department official, sat waiting impatiently for documents to arrive from Citigroup. He'd just been told by the bank's chief financial officer that Citigroup couldn't reach some executives who needed to sign the paperwork, including one woman whose husband was in the hospital with a heart attack.

"Well then, you know where to find her," Lambright replied to the finance chief, Gary Crittenden, according to three accounts of the call. "Put someone in one of your fancy black cars and get her to sign the document."