Josh Birnbaum Goldman Sachs?

Josh Birnbaum, a former managing director in the the mortgage department at Goldman Sachs, will deliver a testimony to the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
U.S. lawmakers are investigating whether Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs misled investors in order to profit ahead of the 2008 financial crisis.

Executives of the firm are testifying at a Senate subcommittee hearing today.
I believe Josh Birnbaum already gave his testimony. What did Josh Birnbaum say?

Josh Birnbaum said Goldman Sachs has such a duty and has fulfilled that duty.

Goldman executives and bankers have been hauled in front of the committee after the firm and Tourre were charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC alleged that Goldman didn't tell investors in a collateralized debt obligation that hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. helped structure the deal and was betting against it. Goldman, Paulson and Tourre have said they did nothing wrong.

Rather than tell staff to go long or short on the housing market, executives told mortgage department managers, those staking out the bank's market position during 2006 and 2007, to "get smaller, reduce risks and get closer to home," said Josh Birnbaum, former managing director of Goldman's mortgage department.

Birnbaum and mortgage department directors Dan Sparks and Mike Swenson said the bank's position was a constantly changing reaction to positions requested by clients.

Josh Birnbaum said today:

"No one from senior management told me to make a directional bet against the subprime market. Rather, during the 2006-2007 period, regardless of whether our books were long or short, the consistent theme from management was to reduce risk in our books.
I am very proud of the accomplishments of the ABS Group during my tenure there. We provided significant liquidity to our clients in a difficult and challenging market while also managing to post a profit during this period."

In a hearing that was expected to last most of the day, Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, was scheduled to be the final witness. According to a statement that Mr. Blankfein planned to deliver, the S.E.C. civil fraud suit shook the bank’s employees. He was also expected to testify that Goldman did not have a substantial, consistent short position in the mortgage market.

Fabrice Tourre told a US Senate committee he did not push an investment designed to lose value, saying "the transaction was not designed to fail... when the securities declined in value, we lost money too".