Goldman Sachs executives boasted about the money the bank was making while the US housing market was collapsing in 2007, released company e-mails show.
The e-mails detail how the investment house profited from the mortgage crisis by betting that the market would fall.
US senator Carl Levin said banks like Goldman were “self-interested promoters of risky schemes that helped trigger the financial crisis”.
The bank says that it lost money in the market crash.
It says it lost $1.2bn (£780m) in the residential mortgage market during 2007-08.
Separately, the bank is also defending itself against a government lawsuit which accuses it of misleading investors.