CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Secret Countrywide Phone Tapes Destroyed:

The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted new congressional calls for more information about the program.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is trying to subpoena the remaining records of Countrywide’s VIP loan program. So far, the committee’s chairman, New York Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns, has turned down that request. . . . Among the prominent VIP program borrowers were two Democratic senators, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Both men have denied wrongdoing, and said they never asked for favorable loan terms from Countrywide. . . .

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Towns, the oversight committee chairman, had received two mortgages from Countrywide — one on his home in Brooklyn and the other on a house in Florida. The loan documents indicated that both had been processed through the VIP unit. At the time, a Towns spokeswoman said his decision not to subpoena the VIP records had “nothing to do with his mortgages.” If the mortgages, which were originated in 2003, came through the VIP unit, Mr. Towns was unaware of that fact and never asked for special treatment, the spokeswoman said.

Sure is convenient that those tapes are gone. . . .