A congressional investigation found that Goldman Sachs executives exchanged e-mails about the firm's profiting by betting against housing markets in 2007.

Four internal e-mails released Saturday belie Goldman's claim it did not try to profit from the sharp decline in housing, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said.

Levin said in a statement, "Goldman made a lot of money by betting against the mortgage market. Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs were not simply market-makers. They were self-interested promoters of risky and complicated financial schemes that helped trigger the (financial) crisis.

The statement further read, "They bundled toxic mortgages into complex financial instruments, got the credit rating agencies to label them as AAA securities and sold them to investors."

Levin also said that, in turn, magnified and spread risk "throughout the financial system, and all too often betting against the instruments they sold and profiting at the expense of their clients."

"Of course we didn't dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts. Also, it's not over, so who knows how it will turn out ultimately," The New York Times reported Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive officer, wrote in a Nov. 18, 2007, e-mail.

In a message dated July 25, 2007, David A. Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer, noted the company had made $51 million profit in a day by betting securities tied to mortgages would drop.

Viniar wrote to Gary D. Cohn, now Goldman's president, "Tells you what might be happening to people who don't have the big short." (With Inputs from Agencies)