Holy crap bump!!!
Countrywide’s Washington lobbyist Jimmie Williams identified influential borrowers for VIP treatment. Williams justified his referrals to the director of the VIP program by explaining the borrower’s position and how he or she could be valuable. Among others, Williams referred the Chief Counsel to the House Financial Services Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee Clinton Jones, HUD SecretaryAlphonso Jackson’s daughter Annette Watkins, U.S. Rep. Melvin Watt’s Chief of Staff Joyce Brayboy, and former Democratic National Committee official and Director of White House Political Affairs under President Clinton Minyon Moore.
For Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Mozilo instructed Perry not to charge any points despite the calculations made by Countrywide underwriter Gene Soda. Mozilo’s waiver of 1.25 points on Holbrooke’s $1.1 million dollar loan represented a discount of $13,750.227.
Jim Lehrer NewsHour Correspondent Margaret Warner According to the documents, borrowers relied on their status as an “FOA” to get preferential treatment. In the case of Margaret Warner, on-air correspondent for PBS’s Jim Lehrer NewsHour, she was aware Mozilo himself had referred her loan to the VIP department and she made sure to notify Feinberg. Warner and Feinberg had previously discussed the terms of a loan, while Warner was also getting quotes from another lender. After suspending or cancelling the loan process with Countrywide, she returned to Feinberg to re-open discussion of the terms of a refinance.
Alphonso Jackson received two loans through the VIP program, and whose daughter was referred to the VIP program by a Countrywide lobbyist; James “Jim” Johnson, former Fannie Mae CEO and adviser to the presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama, whose loans were priced personally by Mozilo at discounted rates. Clinton Jones III, senior counsel of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity, who was referred for “specialized handling” to the “Friends of Angelo” program by a Countrywide lobbyist, resulting in “.5 off and no garbage fees”; and, Franklin D. Raines, CEO of Fannie Mae, for whom Countrywide’s VIP loan division applied a discount of “1 point off, no junk” to a $1 million refinance in response to a phone call from his secretary stating “per Angelo, Frank needs to refi.”
Andrew Bunnin, Manager of the Los Angeles Times, received preferential treatment from Countrywide, as did Jeffrey Young, the National Advertising Director.