Anyone Not Tied to Fannie or Freddie Please Stand Up (New Security Advisor Donilon VP)

Donilon, who contributed $4,600 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in March 2007 (and gave the maximum $2,300 to Obama for the general election in July), has a long resume in Democratic politics. He headed the Clinton-Gore transition effort and Clinton’s 1992 debate prep. He also served as an aide to Sen. Joe Biden in his failed 1988 presidential bid.

More recently, he served as Fannie Mae’s executive vice president for law and policy from 1999 until 2005, giving him control of Fannie Mae’s legal, regulatory and public policy activities and government and industry relations.

Donilon was one of several executives to leave at a time when the company faced pressure to improve its accounting practices, and he was mentioned numerous times in a scathing report two years ago on Fannie’s accounting misdeeds, when the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight accused the company of manipulating results to maximize bonuses. The report didn’t criticize Donilon but said that lobbyists under his direction had pushed for a government investigation of Ofheo in 2004 in order to undermine the regulator’s credibility in challenging Fannie’s accounting.

this from about 2 years ago:

“Why did the Democrats block S-190?” you ask? Because Fannie and Freddie have friends in the Senate. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) is the current Senate Banking Committee Chairman. He received a sweetheart loan. In 2003 he received a cut rate $800,000.00 loan from Countrywide Financial. “Conflict of interest” you say? “Impropriety” you say? Why is Sen. Dodd still serving in the public interest? It seems that he is plainly serving the interest of Chris Dodd.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) also received a sweetheart loan of $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois at a very good rate. TOO good for the vast majority of most citizens. Earlier in his presidential campaign, Barack Obama chose a man named Jim Johnson to head up his VP (Vice Presidential) search committee.

From 1985 until 1990, Jim Johnson was the Managing Director of Lehman Brothers, which is now recently bankrupt because of the subprime mortgage collapse. From 1991 until 1998 – Jim Johnson was the CEO of Fannie Mae, when the CRA was expanded under the Clinton administration. Mr. Johnson improperly deferred $200 million in expenses as the CEO of Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae underreported Johnson’s compensation, which was originally reported as $6 to $7 million. Documents show that Johnson actually received $21 million. He was a contributor to Barack Obama’s campaign and gave the personal maximum allowable donation of $4,600.00.

Currently, Jim Johnson is a wealthy private banker and is on the board of Goldman Sachs, which has donated another $700,000.00 (seven hundred thousand) to Barack Obama’s campaign, and raised another $500,000.00 (five hundred thousand) through bundling. In June of 2008 it was announced that Jim Johnson quit as an Obama advisor because of pressure on account of his involvement in the current financial crisis. Jim also received a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Mortgage. Franklin Raines is Barack Obama’s housing issues advisor. Mr. Raines currently lives in a house valued at approximately $7.6 million dollars.

Raines served as an advisor in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1979 when the CRA was first enacted. From 1980 to 1991 he was an investment banker with Lazard Ltd. From 1991 to 1996 he was the Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, when the CRA was expanded to include subprime loans. From 1996 to 1998 he was the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) director for the Clinton administration. From 1999 to 2004 he was the CEO of Fannie Mae. He received a $25 million dollar “golden parachute” upon his departure. He also received a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Mortgage sometime between 1996 and 2004. Under Franklin Raines’ leadership as chairman and CEO, Fannie changed its charter to a more high-risk enterprise of buying mortgages and holding onto them. Fannie also overstated earnings by a mind-boggling $10.6 Billion and paid Raines and his management team massive bonuses tied to Earnings Per Share (EPS). Any company can hit its EPS targets if they don’t worry about minor details such as accounting rules, debt levels and risk factors.

Franklin Raines pulled in a total of $90 million between 1999 and 2003, the majority from bonuses. In 2004 the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) and OFHEO (Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight) sued Raines to recover some $50 million of his bonuses based on Enron-like accounting practices. Civil charges were also filed against Raines. As a result, Raines agreed to an “early retirement”, paid hefty fines and gave up lucrative retirement benefits (stock options valued at $15.6 million) for his role in accounting “errors”. Franklin Raines resigned from Fannie Mae due to “accounting irregularities”. From 1989 to 2008, Barack Obama received $126,349 in campaign support from Fannie Mae. This is four times more money from Fannie Mae per year than any other senator. It’s 49 times more than John McCain. The lawfirm, “Miner, Barnhill, and Galland” sued banks for not issuing enough subprime loans. They sued Citibank. Obama was a junior lawyer on the team that sued Citibank. What we’re seeing is bad government regulation that made banks become predatory lenders to fulfill a government mandate; to offer souped up, shell game, “Affordable mortgages.”

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