BofA chief: US officials told me to keep quiet

Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis testified under oath that US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pressured the bank not to 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.