The derivatives bill will become part of the financial reform legislation winding its way through the Senate, and some believe the swaps desk provision will be used as a bargaining chip as the full Senate argues over what issues have yet to be ironed out.

FORBES: Banks Fear Senate's Swap Desk Rules

That makes it look like Lewis used a MAC clause as a bargaining chip to get more federal assistance, Kucinich said.

FORBES: Bailout Nation

Yet history also reveals that each party, whenever it has controlled Congress while facing the rival party in the White House, has resisted raising the debt ceiling and has used it as a political bargaining chip.

FORBES: Debt-Ceiling Gimmickry Is Unbecoming A Rational Government

Syndicated Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer suspects that the White House may have used the Petraeus affair as a bargaining chip to influence what he told Congress about the cause of the Benghazi assault.

FORBES: Mainstream Media Caught In Snarl Of Tangled Benghazi Yarns

The group listened intently as one of the executives launched into an unflattering tale of how the employee had used the executive's perfectly good job offer as a bargaining chip for a fat buyback.

FORBES: Magazine Article