As is pretty well known, Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad received very favorable mortgage terms from Countrywide Financial because of their "friendship" with former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California wants to know what other "Friends of Angelo" might be sitting in Congress.
'A March report by Congressman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) highlighted internal Countrywide emails in which executives debated whether the mayor of Billings, Montana, was influential enough to warrant a waiving of his mortgage insurance premium. The company ultimately decided that he was. We can only imagine what Countrywide's internal emails might say about the benefits of "friendship" with Mr. Dodd, who chairs the Banking Committee of the U.S. Senate, or about others who benefited from the program.
Mr. Issa doesn't want to imagine; he wants to discover the facts. He's asked Rep. Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to subpoena records of the "Friends of Angelo" loan program from Bank of America, which bought the failed subprime lender last year. So far, Mr. Towns is noncommittal, and perhaps he is hoping that the issue will fade into the background during the long August recess.'
This was supposed to be the most ethical Congress in history, if we take Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi at her word. Unfortunately, she has never shown any appetite for investigating corruption among Democrats, and since she has the final say in the matter subpoenas, we can expect she will do what she can to make this issue fade away.
Comments