On Friday, November 20, the House passed the Paul-Grayson Amendment, H.R. 1207, Federal Reserve Transparency Act, approving an independent audit of the Federal Reserve in an attempt to finally figure out where all those trillions of dollars have gone.

In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.

The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed’s opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal.

The amendment expressly blocks Congress from interfering with the independence of monetary policy decision-making, but opponents of the measure said that the political pressure would inevitably follow.

“Today was a Waterloo for Fed secrecy,” said a victorious Grayson.

The Republicans broadly backed the Amendment. Barney Frank chided them for suddenly finding their love of transparency in the wake of their loss of power. Frank urged a No vote from Democrats, but 15 of them sided with Ron Paul and Alan Grayson in voting Yea. Grayson was able to show Dems that he had the backing of the liberal community by using a letter organized by FireDogLake. Jane Hamsher of FDL issued this written statement on Thursday.

Alan Grayson has worked tirelessly since becoming a member of Congress to expose the corruption and lack of accountability at the Federal Reserve, and Firedoglake has been proud to support his efforts.

When nobody was really paying attention, Grayson began working to sign Democratic cosponsors to Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207, which authorizes the GAO to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed — something that has never been done it its history. Thanks to his efforts, the bill has gone from 190 to 311 bipartisan cosponsors.

When a last-minute attempt by leadership and the banks threatened to derail the Paul-Grayson bill, Firedoglake circulated a letter signed by labor leaders, noted economists, authors and financial bloggers to demonstrate progressive support for the effort. The letter pulled no punches, asserting that the Fed had “extended massive secret bailouts to major financial institutions” and calling upon Democrats on the Financial Services Committee to stand up to the banks by supporting the Paul-Grayson bill.

Firedoglake is proud to be a part of this historic moment, and of the role we played in supporting Rep. Grayson’s work by urging members of Congress from both parties to take an important step toward transparency in our financial system. Congratulations to the members of the Financial Services Committee for their remarkable achievement, and to Representatives Paul and Grayson for their hard work and leadership.

Seems safe to assume that there are many a heads exploding at the realization that Woo-Woo-Supreme Ron Paul and Rethug-Nemesis Alan Grayson have now been granted the authority to audit the Fed.

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