Here is one of those AIG employees that Congress hates

Jake DeSantis was just doing his job and waiting for his due payment from AIG.  Congress is screwing him over pretty good.  So he quit.

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

…

Read it all.  This is what happens in the Democratic-controlled Congress and Democratic-controlled White House when you have a populist outcry against you, no matter how ill-informed and unfounded.  If the angry mobs want somebody’s head, the government will deliver, rule of law, morality, and Constitution be damned.  Of course, these are the same people who stirred up the populist discontent in the first place, and who manipulated the circumstances that precipitated the whole incident.  Sounds awfully familiar.

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey makes some good points.

People have been calling the AIG bonus outrage “understandable.”  That’s a load of crap.  It springs from a fundamental lack of understanding in Congress about the business world and an almost criminal lack of curiosity about the nature of retention bonuses in general, and these retention bonuses and their recipients in particular.  The screeching and hollering was only “understandable” as complete and total ignorance and stupidity.  And that’s not even accounting for the fact that Treasury, Congress, and the Obama administration knew all about these bonuses long before being “outraged” by them.