The only big deal about Vikram Pandit "stepping down" as Citigroup Inc. ( NYSE:C ) CEO and his removal from the board is that it didn't happen sooner. The truth is he didn't leave voluntarily. He was given an ultimatum by the "new" board of directors: resign or be fired. Poor old Vikram. This was a setup from the start. He ended up at Citigroup when the mega-bank bought his Old Lane hedge fund for more than $800 million. Poor old Vik pocketed about $165 million in the sale and continued to run the fund, some say into the ground, until Citi shut it down. In 2007, my favorite Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ( NYSE:GS ) ex-CEO Robert Rubin (who after pandering to all the big banks in the country as Secretary of the Treasury in Bill Clinton's administration, then pimped himself to Citigroup after allowing Citibank to merge with Sandy Weill's Travelers insurance conglomerate (that owned Salomon Smith Barney) in an illegal deal that required Congress to kill prudent banking laws (Glass-Steagall) to make it legal actually handpicked Vikram to run the bank. Super rich-boy Bob Rubin, of course, had nothing to do with running Citibank after making it the mega-bank it became as a result of the merger; he was merely a special consultant to the board, or some B.S. like that. But here's what really happened... To continue reading, please click here...