The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) has been in the news this week, warning of a government-induced second housing bubble. New York Magazine sat down with the man leading the independent oversight department: As a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for eight years, he went back and forth to Bogotá to prosecute drug traffickers. Barofsky, 39, brought that same prosecutorial zeal to his work as the “TARP cop” since he was appointed by Bush in 2008. On January 27, the day before we meet, both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson were flagellated by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform with facts from Barofsky’s meticulously researched report. Barofsky himself testified that day about the Federal Reserve’s controversial decision to use taxpayer money to pay financial institutions like Goldman Sachs full price on contracts with the failing AIG, among other things. (“They could have tried a little harder” to get the banks to make concessions, he told the committee.)