Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, September 26, 2008 10:46:23 AM
Countrywide Mortgage CEO Angelo Mozilo offered sweetheart deals
on loans to his “friends”, who just happened to be people who had
oversight responsibilities on his business. People like Fannie Mae
CEO/chair Jim Johnson, Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, and others
got below-market-rate loans from Mozilo through a “Friends of Angelo”
program at one of the main lenders at the heart of the subprime
collapse. Now a federal grand jury wants to talk to Angelo’s circle of friends to determine whether indictments for corruption are in order
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Jamie Gorelick. The former
9/11 Commission panelist wound up being one of the focal points of the
dot-connecting afterwards, as she pushed for further separation of law
enforcement and intelligence efforts in the years prior to the 9/11
attacks, even while al-Qaeda attacked American embassies in Africa and
the USS Cole. Now she turns up at Fannie Mae, taking the same kind of
insider loans while having oversight responsibilities for the GSE and
the manner in which its business got transacted with other firms,
including Countrywide.
Gorelick claims she never knew she got preferential treatment. For
that matter, Barack Obama’s campaign adviser Jim Johnson says the same
thing. However, both got loans a full point lower than market value at
the time, after going outside the normal channels to get their loans
handled. Are we to believe that the CEO of Fannie Mae and a member of
its board were completely ignorant of the going rate for residential loans
at the time of their application? What business did they think they
were in, anyway? The rate for residential loans is the center of
Fannie Mae’s business.
The notion that they were ignorant of their preferential treatment insults both their intelligence and ours.
This to me seems a lot more worthy of an investigation than a dismissal of a political appointee in Juneau.