The former Treasury official in charge of overseeing the $700 billion financial bailout told the department's inspector general shortly after his resignation that President Obama sought restrictions on lobbyist intervention for solely political reasons, the Washington Times reports based on a document it obtained.

"Months after the administration's pledge, the lobbyist rules haven't been implemented and Neel Kashkari, the one-time czar of the agency's Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the office of the special inspector general for TARP that the pledge to craft safeguards against lobbyist influence was a defensive move," the newspaper reported today.

Kashkari assumed oversight of TARP fund distribution last October, when he was appointed under the Bush administration. He announced his resignation in April. He made his remarks to auditors in the inspector general's office on April 30.

"Mr. Kashkari believed that this statement [pledging lobbying rules] was purely for political reasons with Obama's new entering administration, and that there was no substantive reason for this announcement," the document obtained by the Washington Times states. "He noted that, at that time, there had been headlines in the press regarding lobbyists influencing the process, and Treasury wanted to show that they were taking action."

The newspaper said that while an audit last month found no evidence of lobbyist influence on the TARP money, "limitations on Treasury's record-keeping made it impossible to be certain of that."