Updated at 5:28 p.m.

Facing back-to-back days of U.S. House hearings, Wells Fargo turned to the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr to prepare the bank's new chief executive, Charlie Scharf, and hired Debevoise & Plimpton to advise a pair of former board members who resigned just days ahead of their planned testimony.

The hearings, held Tuesday and Wednesday, followed the House Financial Services Committee's release of a damning report documenting years of alleged mismanagement that exposed consumers to "countless abuses, including racial discrimination, wrongful foreclosure, illegal vehicle repossession, and fraudulently opened accounts."

Just days before they were set to appear before the House panel, the chairwoman of Wells Fargo's board, Elizabeth Duke, and board member James Quigley resigned after being portrayed in the committee report as slow to address the bank's consumer abuses.

Wells Fargo hired Debevoise partners Mary Jo White and David Sarratt to prep the board members ahead of their Wednesday appearance before the House Financial Services Committee. White, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, led the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during the Obama administration.

In his testimony Tuesday, Scharf acknowledged the broken culture behind Wells Fargo's past scandals but projected confidence in the bank's ability to address those failings. Scharf had been prepped by Wilmer partners Jeremy Dresner and Reginald Brown, a leading congressional investigations lawyer who has advised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other high-profile executives ahead of appearances on Capitol Hill. Wilmer declined to comment.

As the third Wells Fargo CEO to appear before the House Financial Services Committee in as many years, Scharf drew some gallows humor from the panel. A few lawmakers questioned why he took up the task of reforming a bank bogged down in scandal.

"I wish you luck," Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, told him Tuesday. "It is clear to this committee that the bank you inherited is essentially a lawless organization that has caused widespread harm to millions of consumers throughout the nation."

Maxine Waters Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-California, chairs a House Financial Services Committee in 2019. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Under Waters' leadership, the House Financial Services Committee has established itself as an especially formidable panel as Democrats have seized on their majority to undertake aggressive investigations. Among lawyers who specialize in advising companies through congressional investigations, Waters' committee is known for having a particular proclivity for summoning top executives for questioning.

Waters had previously called Scharf's predecessor, Tim Sloan, who stepped down in March 2019. On Tuesday, Waters asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Sloan had made false statements to Congress in a hearing held just weeks before his resignation.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, Waters alleged Sloan "gave inaccurate and misleading testimony" about the bank's efforts to comply with settlement agreements reached in 2016 and 2018. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in 2016 to resolve an investigation into the bank's widespread practice of opening accounts for consumers without their consent. In 2018, Wells Fargo reached a separate settlement with the Federal Reserve resolving claims that the board's failures facilitated "widespread consumer abuses and compliance breakdowns."

A lawyer for Sloan, Josh Cohen of Clarence Dyer & Cohen in San Francisco, said in a statement Wednesday: "The allegation that Tim Sloan provided inaccurate and misleading testimony to the House Financial Services Committee is completely unfounded. Mr. Sloan described the considerable efforts that Wells Fargo made under his leadership to comply with the consent orders and directives of regulators.  His testimony to the Committee about those efforts was truthful and in good faith."

More recently, Wells Fargo reached a $3 billion settlement with the Justice Department and SEC resolving allegations stemming from the bank's fake accounts scandal. Lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell, including Nicolas Bourtin and Christopher Viapiano, helped Wells Fargo navigate the agreement. Bourtin is managing partner of the firm's criminal defense and investigations group.

In its investigation of Wells Fargo, the House committee convinced regulators to turn over confidential supervisory information, helping the panel's staff produce a 113-page report that cast the board as complacent in the bank's response to a string of scandals. The report documents a meeting in November 2017 where Duke questioned why the CFPB included her on letters concerning the bank's compliance with the terms of the 2016 sales-practices settlement.

"Why are you sending it to me, the board, rather than the department manager?" she asked, according to notes from the 2017 meeting.

At Wednesday's hearing, Waters took the rare step of calling board members from a major company. Duke and Quigley resigned Sunday, saying they hoped their departures would "facilitate the bank's and the new CEO's ability to turn the page and avoid distraction that could impede the bank's future progress."

With Debevoise's Sarratt seated behind them, Duke and Quigley each stressed that they hoped their departures would help Wells Fargo "turn the page and focus on the future."

In a scathing address, Waters noted that the two had resigned after she had called for them to step down.

"But their resignations do not absolve them of their failures," Waters said. "Directors at Wells Fargo and institutions across this country must understand that they are the last line of defense when it comes to protecting their companies' shareholders, employees and customers. And while Ms. Duke and Mr. Quigley said they resigned to 'avoid distraction,' let me be clear that this is not a distraction—we are examining misconduct and dereliction of duty."

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This report was updated to include comment from a lawyer for Tim Sloan.