Silence

clipped from uk.reuters.com April 23 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis testified under oath that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured the bank to not discuss its plan to buy Merrill Lynch & Co, the Wall Street Journal said. In a testimony before New York's attorney general Andrew Cuomo in February, Lewis told prosecutors that he believed Paulson and Bernanke were instructing him to keep silent about deepening financial difficulties at Merrill, which BofA acquired in January. Lewis testified that the government wanted him to remain silent while the two sides negotiated government funding to help BofA absorb Merrill and its losses, the paper said, citing transcripts of the testimony. A representative of Cuomo questioned Lewis about his failure to disclose Merrill's fourth-quarter losses, which eventually totaled $15.84 billion, according to the paper.