Obama adviser lobbied to protect Fannie(Thomas E. Donilon

Washington Times ^ | 111808 | Jim McElhatton

[Fred]

A transition adviser to President-elect Barack Obama earned millions of dollars overseeing an office that led a lobbying effort to prevent increased oversight of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the company at the heart of the ongoing turmoil in the nation's financial markets, public records show.

The unpaid adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, held several senior positions at Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005, including vice president of law and policy, at a time when the company's officers and lobbyists were insisting that now-troubled Fannie's finances were sound.

In a 2006 report, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said Fannie Mae lobbyists, whose office was overseen by Mr. Donilon, tried to use their ties to members of Congress to discredit federal regulators through a campaign aimed at securing the release of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report to discredit OFHEO.

"Thus, Fannie Mae succeeded in creating a large volume of negative publicity about the OFHEO examination report, in an effort to distract attention from its multibillion-dollars accounting errors," the OFHEO report found.

"That initiative, although conceived and executed by the [Fannie Mae] government and industry relations department, was well-known by many members of senior management," including then-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Franklin Raines, Mr. Donilon and Fannie Mae's general counsel, according to the OFHEO report.

Mr. Donilon wasn't involved in the accounting irregularities that ultimately prompted OFHEO to seek more than $100 million that Fannie Mae paid out in compensation to Mr. Raines and two other top officials.

Obama aides say that Mr. Donilon will have no say in housing matters and that as a former State Department official, he's providing valuable input during the transition.

[cookcounty]

Ha! The WashTimes! Like anybody is going to read that!

The MSM is giving Obama such a pathetic pass on his VERY NUMEROUS connections to the Fannie/Freddie scandal. They should call themselves FannieMaeTV.

[ETL]

Must see video from 2004: Democrats Defend Fannie/Freddie from Regulation:
"We've been through nearly a dozen hearings where frankly we were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac and in particular at Fannie Mae under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines."
-Rep. Maxine Waters, 2004
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL36nwCSYUM
_________________________________________________________

History of Fannie Mae scandal
Associated Press, December 7, 2006
"Fannie Mae announces its long-awaited restatement, erasing $6.3 billion in profit from 2001 through June 30, 2004."
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/12/07/history_of_fannie_mae_scandal/?page=1

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

This is called “cover-up.” Hire the people who can cause you trouble if they have to testify before Congress (no chance now), or in a court. Give them some kind of Executive Office protection (oh, and the Democrats recognize that for Rove and Libby, etc?).

Crooks covering for crooks and the mainstream media looks away. At least the Wash. Times is doing its job, and thanks to the internet, it is going across the country.

Send this to your friends, and tell them to start a file on Clintonistas, communists, crooks, and cronies that are appearing in the Obama “change” staff day after day.

I’m not sure that this is what Obie meant by “change” or is it?