Judicial Watch: Corruption at Fannie Mae

    Judicial Watch is a private government oversight organization dedicated to "Promoting Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Government, Politics and the Law."  They do so, in the words on their masthead, "Because no one is above the law."  Anyone can sign up on their website for a weekly News Update.

    Today's update included information that should give pause to those who continue to blame the previous administration for the problems in the housing finance markets.  Here's the lead-in to the article:

    New Documents Uncovered by Judicial Watch Show Congress Ignored Corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for Years

    Barney Frank and his liberal allies in Congress have more explaining to do.

    According to new documents we uncovered this week, members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues even while liberals in Congress (led by Frank) continued to block attempts to regulate the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).

    We obtained these documents from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we submitted back on December 4, 2008. This is part of our comprehensive investigation of the government's role in the financial crisis, but our particular concern in this case was the policy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase lending to individuals with poor credit risk, as well as correspondence and records about contacts between FHFA and Fannie and Freddie.

You should read the entire article, and also read and evaluate the original documents.  If this isn't enough evidence to convince you that voting for this current bunch was the wrong thing to do, I don't know what will.

 

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