American scandal uses dramatizations that are based on true events.

Some elements, including dialogue, might be invented, but everything is based on historical research.

Music It's October 6, 2008 in Washington, D.C. A black SUV pulls up outside the Rayburn House office building on Capitol Hill. Protesters crowd around a barricade.

They wave signs, scrawled with the words, shame and crook, as the former CEO of

Lehman Brothers, Dick Fold, emerges from the car with his lawyer by his side.

Folle hurries toward the white marble building while his lawyer tries to shield him from the

jeering crowd.

When they enter the hearing room,

Fold takes a seat at a long mahogany witness table, a microphone, a single cup of water,

and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wait in front of him.

Fold glances at his lawyer, who sits over to the side. They've rehearsed their story.

Lehman Brothers was a victim of the financial

crisis, not the cause. But now, sitting before the scowling members of Congress, Foll

begins to sweat. He delivers his prepared statement and takes questions from the lawmakers.

Foll has been giving answers for over an hour when Representative Peter Welch leans toward the microphone.

Thank you, Mr. Foll, for being here today. There's a tragedy unfolding all across America.

We're only just beginning to fuel the pain. Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, took a simple step in the American dream of family buying a home and turned it into a commodity

to be sold and traded, and now, well, there was a whole series of bailouts. But the decision

was made when it came to Lehman, there was going to be no governmental assistance. So in fact,

Lehman Brothers was treated differently than some of the other financial giants that were in similar

circumstances. Do you have any understanding of why Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail?

Whereas other banks were the beneficiaries of multi-billion dollar bailout sponsored by the Treasury Department?

...