Countrywide Influenced Congress with Sweetheart Loans Before Crash!

[kpete]

July 06, 2012 07:00 AM
Countrywide Influenced Congress with Sweetheart Loans Before Crash
By Nicole Belle

Hmmm....can you say "conflict of interest"?

Between January 1996 and June 2008, Countrywide Financial, the scrapped mortgage arm of Bank of America, exercised its influence by handing out hundreds of discounted VIP loans to key Congressional members, White House employees, Fannie Mae executives, and other high-ranking government officials and staffers.

Traditionally, Countrywide used its VIP Loan program to process loans for company executives and their friends, but a new report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform shows the program was also used to incentivize members of Congress, including former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, Former Republican California Rep. Tom Campbell, New York Democrat Rep. Edolphus Towns and California Republican Rep. Elton Gallegly.

"Countrywide's VIP unit processed loans for key senators and Senate staff who could be helpful when legislation that affected the company was drafted or up for a vote," the report explains.

The report reveals Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, along with a number of lobbyists, often connected members of the Senate Committee on Banking and the House Committee on Financial Services to the company's VIP program in California, which handled the company's favored clients. In some cases, the report says lawmakers and executives saved thousands of dollars on their loans through the program.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/05/countrywide-issued-discounted-loans-for-congressional-influence

http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/countrywide-influenced-congress-sweet

[cbdo2007]

1. I don't understand how people get away with this.....

shouldn't there be an investigation and resignations due to this type of thing??

[Ghost of Huey Long]

2. Congress needs to be investigated

They are treasonous bastards serving their own interest, clearly not the public interest.

They are violating their oath of office daily, not protecting or defending the Constitution. They should be fired immediately.

[KharmaTrain]

5. And Who Investigates?

There have been investigations into what are considered "ethics" violations but these are done by other members...Congress can and is held accountable only to itself. The nebulous laws (many written by these same "legislators&quot have plenty of loopholes where what appears to be a conflict of interest is "legal". The whole banking game is to make things so blurry and piled over in legalese that trying to find any wrong doing is difficult and tedious. And now with the rushpublicans in control of the "ethics" committee you'll see men on Mars before they'll agree to any real investigation and/or reform.

In short...people get away with it because they can. And when one person sees another doing it, the corruption spreads fast...

[ananda]

3. Haven't we known this for yonks?

Chris Dodds and all . . .

[FarCenter]

4. It may be why Chris Dodd didn't run for the Senate again.

Why isn't Angelo Mozilo in jail?

[canoeist52]

6. We've known this for four years

and just now the media is picking up on it. Why the delay?