Among them was Douglas Poling, who received the richest payment of more than $6.4 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Poling, the 48-year-old son of a former chief executive of Ford Motor Co., is an executive vice president with responsibility for energy and infrastructure investments. He is one of the roughly 418 current and former employees from AIG’s financial-products unit who received bonus payments. Mr. Poling declined to comment…

The CEO further tried to parry the public’s disgust, acknowledging Americans were “mad as a hornet” that employees would collect the bonuses. He said he asked those who received $100,000 or more to forfeit at least half the amount. Some bonus recipients had already agreed to return the payments in full, he said, although he didn’t provide details about how much had been repaid, or by how many employees…

Spurred by the anti-AIG anger, congressional Democrats, moving swiftly, unveiled legislation Wednesday to put new taxes on executives working at any firm receiving at least $5 billion in federal assistance. The legislation would impose a 90% surtax on payments made to executives and high-earning employees, effective retroactively to bonuses paid after Dec. 31, 2008.