In Bid To Reform Fannie and Freddie, Obama Can’t Shake Crony Clintonistas Who Caused the Mess
Last Tuesday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) finally got around to it. With Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner as the guest star, the House Committee on Financial Services convened to ponder “the future of housing finance” — specifically, how to clean up in the aftermath of the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So-called government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, Fannie and Freddie have now drained hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars with no end in sight.
But while the GSEs went belly-up, costing Americans dearly, the fortunate few sitting on their Boards of Directors got filthy rich. These same directors — some of the biggest names in Democratic Party politics and business — failed spectacularly to fulfill their fiduciary obligations.
As it turns out, former President Clinton packed the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with virtually as many personal allies and beneficiaries as they could hold. The most visible was Franklin Raines — Fannie Mae chairman, CEO, and former Clinton budget chief — who later resigned in disgrace with a multi-million parachute.
And then there’s President Obama’s current White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who served on Fannie Mae’s board for a mere 14 months and raked in a cool $320,000.
Clinton also packed the Fannie board with Democratic Senator and “Keating Five” defendant Dennis DeConcini. Hillary Clinton’s confidante Jamie Gorelick got a prized seat, as did Bill and Hillary favorite Harold Ickes, Democratic strategist.
A federal report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight condemned the boards of both Fannie and Freddie, calling their actions contributing to the housing meltdown “malfeasance.” Freddie Directors like Emanuel were blasted for failing to confront the “management issues that were root causes of many of the problems that led to the ongoing restatement of the financial reports of the Enterprise,” and permitting management to profit from cooking the books to the tune of $5 billion in 2003 alone.
But even a brief stay on the Fannie or Freddie Boards was its own source of fat profits. Among the rewards for Democratic Party “public service,” a lucrative board membership on Fannie and Freddie was considered the Taj Mahal of plum positions. Now, as the housing market limps forward and there are warnings of a new wave of foreclosures, the culpable coterie remains largely anonymous.
What’s more, this group of lifetime political hacks puts the Obama administration at risk, just as it struggles to forge a way forward through the financial wreckage wrought while America’s wealthiest, most powerful Democrats made their careers.
Rahm Emanuel has come under particular scrutiny, with a series of reports by the Chicago Tribune making waves across the Internet. The inexperience and poor management of former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo is already well documented. But who else was involved in the largest single housing implosion in our nation’s history?
– Dennis DeConcini, one of the infamous Keating Five, told the Spokesman Review in 2003 of an early White House chat with Clinton: “You’ve been a great friend, Dennis, what can I do for you?” “I told him I wanted to be on the board of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.”
– Jamie Gorelick is a close confidant of Hillary Clinton. Gorelick joined WilmerHale, the high-powered firm representing Fannie Mae, on July 1, 2003, the same day she stepped down from Fannie’s Board.
– Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, wrote a lengthy profile of Harold Ickes called “Bill Clinton’s Garbage Man,” in no less respectable a publication than the New York Times.
– Jack Quinn was Al Gore’s chief of staff and counsel.
– Eli Segal was a Clinton senior adviser.
But these are hardly the only holdovers from the network of friends and associates who dominated politics in the Clinton era to have made hay while overseeing the fatal errors that nearly destroyed the American economy.
Corrupt progressives laid the groundwork for Obama over decades, and then the ‘community organizer’ extraordinaire surpassed them all within the space of a year. Mind you he did play his part too filing billion dollar class suits against Citibank in the 90′s for not lending to high risk individuals also.
These slimy Dems have run their criminal enterprises for far too long, and they’ve enjoyed and abused not only taxpayer’s loot but also share in the planned destruction of this nation from the inside. They’re the most treasonous bunch of political miscreants to enjoy public office in this nation ever. Put simply they belong in orange jumpsuits.
Nov can’t come soon enough..
i was advised to buy Fannie/Freddie prefered stocks in May of ’08. Not good. My broker (who is no longer working on me) said I would likely recoup some of my losses after Congressional hearings. Yeah, where’s my bridge?
I wouldn’t even buy Trsy’s or TIPs from this govt.–they’re all crooks.
I think Bush knew something globally was amiss–remember he tried to put Wolfowitz at the World Bank?
The politically correct John McCain during his presidential campaign refused to even once mention the mortgages provided to minorities possessing poor credit histories. He undoubtedly was worried about being charged with racism. The situation is bloody awful today because Democrats flagrantly employed the race card whenever anyone dared ask serious questions concerning these Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home loans. This nonsense can no longer be tolerated—but are our Republican leaders willing to bit the bullet? Are they yet immune to the inevitable slanderous charges of racism?
While I agree that McCain was too timid to use any of this information effectively in the campaign, had he done so, it not only would it have been called racist, but the media would have attempted to cover over it or dismiss it. After all, Sarah Palin wasn’t too timid to attack Obama and his questionable cronies, but every time she went there, she was treated with even MORE derision than before by the press and labeled a nutcase. It was too easy for people to say that the crisis resulted from “Republican deregulation” without having any knowledge of what was really going on in the financial sector or why. An Obama-voting colleague even refused to read this 2003 New York Times article about the Bush administration pushing for more oversight of Fannie and Freddie only to be rebuffed by Democrats, most notably Barney Frank, who is quoted in the article as saying, “These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Unfortunately, while this administration has so effectively demonized private sector CEOs in the eyes of much of the electorate they’ve succeeded, beyond their wildest expectations, in the “Hey look! Something shiny over there!” technique. Ask any regular person off the street about corporate greed and hardly a man (or woman) will even know who Franklin Raines or James Johnson is – let alone who they worked for. But they know where AIG executives live. They know their kids names and, to the penny, how much they made last year.
Hopefully, we can do a clean sweep of Congress this November which will be a big step toward removing Fannie and Freddie enablers (among many other things).
This article is not particularly helpful. What isn’t understood is the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the TARP crisis. And there’s little point in mentioning the names of these Clinton appointed financial Neanderthals without stating their obscene compensation.
And you failed to mention that, after Chris Dodd, Obama was the second largest recipient of a campaign contribution from Fannie Mae. What a GSE is doing making campaign contributions to politicians responsible for oversight is another matter. It creates an obvious conflict of interest – for starters.
McCain and the Republicans were handed The Campaign Issue of 2008 on a silver platter and had no clue what to do with it.
John McCain lost the election because of race guilt. I remain convinced that the odds were against Barack Obama. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue alone would have destroyed his campaign. Regrettably, McCain refused to touch the matter with the proverbial ten foot pole.
Republicans must stop being so afraid of being slandered as racists. This truly is probably the only reason why the GOP does not outright dominate American politics.
I agree with the statement that the Republicans were handed “the campaign issue of 2008″..and didn’t know what to do with it. Infact!!, it has been quite a while since Republicans have known what to do with anything they are handed..
The left is empowered by the right to do exactly what they want to do..and not be afraid of retaliation. The right is too “civilized” for their own good, just like McCain.
The people on the left and their dealing didn’t suddenly appear out of ” no where”.. The Barney Franks, Pelosis etc need to go..but they seem to be like a planters wart.. Their voting districts appear to have no morals nor ethics.
The real villain in all of this, besides of course Billy (I never had sex with that woman) Clinton, is A. Greenspan, who recently blamed (you guessed it) Bush for the economic troubles the US is facing today !
Greenspan should return all the money (salary at least) he made while Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and should be tried for incompetence and dereliction of duty. Pointing fingures at Bush doesn’t fool anyone.
Pointing fingures (sic) at Bush doesn’t fool anyone.
Polls say otherwise. Despite the gross incompetence of Obama,the majority still blame Bush for the current mess.
My point was about Greenspan pointing fingers at Bush; and that his lack of accountability doesn’t fool any one.
As to these “polls” that blame Bush, “polls” can say anything those that take them want them so say; just see Gallup’s “polls.”
OK, this is silver bullet material for the 2010 and 2012 elections, but I have two questions. First, which republicans were on the take? And second, are there any Republicans with the guts to take this on, the ability to articulate this, and the willingness to expose the corrupt republicans who were also on the take?
This is why the republican party needs an internal policing mechanism–or we need to create on for them.
Remember this, the republicans have an ideology that resonates with the american people but the hypocrisy, corruption, and incompetence is what is sinking them.
Here’s the most stunning part of the entire article:
“What’s more, this group of lifetime political hacks puts the Obama administration at risk, just as it struggles to forge a way forward through the financial wreckage wrought while America’s wealthiest, most powerful Democrats made their careers.”
PUTS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AT RISK? Really????
Cronyism is the only reason the Obama administration exists and what they survive on! They are, as we speak, infesting other federal agencies with their own sick brand of “capitalism.” What the heck is the purpose of massive “comprehensive” legislation (health care, cap and trade, immigration, etc.)? I’ll tell you: It’s to create more host agencies that these parasites can live off of for the rest of their lives.
Which is why this market we have now is completely fake. They’re cooking the books for their own personal gain. But they can’t cook the books forever. It’s only a matter of time . . . .
Let us NOT speak about what has happened in political terms:
marxists don’t work in politics, they work at waging A WAR.
Fannie and Freddie were (are) two floating mines, built to sink the system.
The salaries, the millions of dollars in corruption, etc. ARE NOT the point of Freddie and Fannie, are just secondary consequences.
The main point was: fill the credit system with toxic assets and wait for the right moment to trigger the bomb.
The right moment obviously has been… the presidential elections.
Fine minds have worked at this coup.
And it worked great.
And it worked so great that until today no serious pundit would accept my diagnosis of what has happened.
That’s because America does not know how the marxists work and think.
We better understand that we must renounce our political interpretations and we must read what happens in military-strategic terms.
The “war” is the war against Freedom, and we better see it before we lose it.
Only by understanding what is happening we will be able to forge a strategy that can include serious political moves and can roll back the subversion.
Sherab, I usually agree with your comments but I believe it’s generally wrong to ascribe to bad motives or conspiracies what can be explained by stupidity. The people who imposed the CRA had the best of intentions to uplift the poor but they were willing to impose the use of insane lending practices to achieve their ends. And some were quite willing to rob this temporary artificial golden goose they created.
People like Gorelick no doubt think all the “good” they were doing for the poor merited their outrageous remuneration. She and Cuomo need to be the poster girl and boy for everything that is wrong with the CRA.
Apologist much ?
These people are not stupid; Their intentions were:
Stimulate the Economy, Buy votes, and get rich(er).
No good intentions, only self-interested greed.
Terry Gain,
subversion is a layered cake, from the things that you see on top of it (the so-called “reasons” that move the community “organizers”)to the structure of corruption, to the real foundations where the strategists work: you may decrease the “conspiracy” tone of my post by thinking that the strategists not only START the action but sometimes just USE what had already been set in motion as part of the general (and generic) activity of subversion.
But the financial crisis of 2008 fall has been artificially triggered using a tool that had been honed (translation : a destroying machine that had been charged) long before.
The right reaction by Bush and by McCain should have been … to arrest all the past and present managers of Freddie and Fannie, go on TV and denounce all that the democrats had done in the years to prepare the bomb of toxic assets.
Unluckily, as I said, they thought politics instead of war strategy.
And now the crack organizers are in command, and plan further attacks to the system of Freedom.
Jamie Gorelick should be sent to Siberia before she completely destroys this country. I have never seen anyone do so much damage and get so wealthy in doing that damage.
It’s mind boggling.
The single most under-reported story in the entire financial mess is Cuomo’s suing Accubanc for financial discrimination.
That set the entire stage for the collapse.
I expect rats to steal. The entire mortgage derivatives scam was an open crime. Anybody well acquainted with money management and the behavior of the financial mavens heading the banks could see it coming for miles and miles.
The bankers and brokers were warned. The last few years they knew the whole thing was going to collapse but they knew they could point the finger at congress. Meanwhile they pocketed trillions of $.
If I cheat on my taxes I will be in big trouble and probably in IRS debtors prison (penalties and garnishment) or even behind bars. Why were not the principals of the institutions of this fraud not jailed and their money confiscated and returned to the people it was stolen from?
Because we have a criminal fed government and George Bush ( the dolt ) stood by and watched the theft. I’m sure his family profited. Capitalism with crooked pols in power is piracy.
Not only was the theft not prosecuted but quite the reverse. The criminals were paid MORE money by way of bailout with OUR money.
For goodness sake. We have cause far and away greater for rebellion than did our Founders. We have been enslaved not just over taxed. It increases day by day. Where have we heard a warning it would be like this one day?
Including the replies, we have fewer than 20 comments on one of the most important domestic issues facing the country. Why? It involves math, which causes most people’s eyes to glaze over.
Terry I posted a response to you on here which pointed out that MOST of the Sub Prime lending that the Banks were FORCED to make was overwhelmingly benefitted one ethnic group in particular. But I made the mistake of NAMING that ethnic group and true to form the RACE POLICE at PJM censored it, as does ALL the MSM. So now you know why you are not getting many responses.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who served on Fannie Mae’s board for a mere 14 months
I’d sure believe a little more in this “investigative journalism” if Mr. Poulos had fact-checked that canard. Rahm Emanuel “worked”, and derived a splendid bonus from, Freddie Mac.
Is anything else bogus?
Fannie, Freddie, abusive, defective subprime lending (Countrywide, Washington Mutual et al.) gaining momemtum over at least a 10 year period, and “the Fed” claims not to have seen the tsunami coming.
Massive deceivers, dissemblers and just plain morons like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters claiming “nothing wrong here” in the years just before the meltdown, the world at large not unaffected as many had purchased the bundled derivatives that were touted as having the full backing of the United States government.
Even a complete financial tyro might have detected the insanity. (what, your bleeding heart BS is forcing 105% home loans to individuals who have no chance of meeting their mortgage requirements ?)
I’d guess everyone in DC (even “geniuses” like Alan Greenspan) is too preoccupied playing Beltway power games to notice that practices and policies might have real deleterious effects somewhere in the universe.
Now this is great debate! Terry, it is not the math that is blame for the dearth of responses to the commentary, but the lack of information by the MSM.
The MSM under-reported or in fact did its best to overlook or obfuscate the issue so as to protect the Dems from any fallout.
Second, as Sherab is pointing out, that marxists in our government have been secretly destroying our nation for years. For the ordinary person-not the delude left-to believe that there are marxists in our government intent on bringing our nation to its knees requires a great deal of denial of disbelief.
Third and lastly, there is the race factor. The biggest defenders in Congress of this mess were the CBC. Who on the right was willing to go head-to-head with that segregationist organization? Nobody! Everybody in DC knew that the blacks in Congress and their white progressive supporters Dodd and Franks were covering up this mess. The spineless weasels on our side just stood there like they always do.
Obama also hates PROFIT just look at his war on Banks and Insurance Companies and Big Business . Why you might ask well just Google SHARIAH BANKING the HYPOCRITICAL Mohammedan Banking System where you never pay or receive INTEREST just CHARGES which fits in well with Islam’s monumental HYPOCRISY. Then ask yourself if Obama hates PROFITS and Mohammedans SAY they hate PROFITS too you can conclude that this is just one MORE confirmation that the BOGUS POTUS is a LYING MOHAMEDAN
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