In Congress, the suspects do the questioning

WASHINGTON — The committee examining the causes of the financial crisis heard a strong defense of the Federal Reserve from its former chairman on Wednesday as the panel began three days of hearings 0n the failure to rein in Citigroup, Fannie Mae and the subprime mortgage market.

He pointed out that the Fed had warned about subprime lending and low-down-payment mortgages in 1999, and again in 2001. And he argued that if the Fed had tried to slow the housing market amid a “fairly broad consensus” about encouraging homeownership, “the Congress would have clamped down on us.”

He added: “There is a lot of amnesia that’s emerging, apparently.”

Mr. Greenspan’s testimony kicked off a day of hearings for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan panel appointed by Congress to examine the mortgage meltdown and banking bailouts.