Was Bank of America's CEO intimidated by the feds?

In response to these inflammatory reports, a source close to Bernanke told The Wall Street Journal that the Fed chairman did not offer Lewis any advice on the disclosure. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Paulson told the Journal that the former Treasury Secretary simply told Lewis that "the U.S. government was committed to ensuring that no systematically important institution would fail."

So, was Lewis truly intimidated by the government, or is the embattled CEO just trying to shift blame for the mishandled merger? Either way, the chief executive's still in the hot seat. Yale Law School Deputy Dean Jonathan Macey told the Journal's Dennis K. Berman, " . . . whatever he was told by these regulators should not or does not in any shape or form get him off the hook."

That's bad news for Lewis. At Bank of America's annual meeting on April 29, shareholders will vote on whether the CEO should be ousted from his role as chairman -- not just because of the botched Merrill buy, but also because of the bank's abysmal share price. BAC has shed 77.6% during the past 52 weeks.

Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and financial writer in the research department at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is featured in the video series Schaeffer's Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.