Going by the excerpts of prepared remarks for the Wednesday hearing before the US House of Representatives Government Oversight and Reform Committee, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will defend the Federal Reserve Bank’s controversial $62.1-billion bailout of American International Group (AIG).

Geithner, who was the Federal Reserve chairman when AIG was rescued in 2008, will clarify his position in the AIG bailout, revealing to the lawmakers that he had “no role in making decisions regarding what to disclose about the specific financial terms of Maiden Lane II and Maiden Lane III, and payments to AIG’s counterparties.”

The prepared testimony, which a committee member released late Tuesday, shows that Geithner would defend the government’s AIG bailout decision, saying that the Federal Reserve officials were motivated “solely by what we believed to be in the best interests of the American people.”

As per the testimony, the decision taken by the officials was neither aimed at protecting the financial interests of individual institutions, nor was it a step in the direction of helping foreign banks.

To counter the lawmakers’ criticism that the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” for financial firms, Geithner will argue that it should be borne in mind that the actions of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve largely brought the American financial system to a point where it can afford to provide the credit required for the country’s economic growth.