Reply #21: This is just from the other day

[Adelante]

Edwards has said he joined Fortress to gain some business experience. The firm paid him $479,512 last year for his advice, according to his disclosure form. Fortress executives are his biggest source of campaign cash from any company or law firm, giving him $190,150.

Two of the firm’s holdings have proved particularly troublesome for Edwards: Nationstar Mortgage of Dallas and Green Tree Servicing of St. Paul, Minn., both sub-prime lenders. The Wall Street Journal in August disclosed links among Edwards, Fortress and the two subprime lenders, which had sought to foreclose on victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Edwards launched his campaign in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, linking the post-Katrina problems to his drive to lift people out of poverty.

Edwards instructed officials at Fortress to redirect his investments away from subprime lenders, an effort to repair damage from the story. He also pledged a donation to aid those in Louisiana who were at risk of losing their homes.

He committed $100,000 in seed money - an undisclosed amount of it from his own pocket - to a fund that ACORN Housing set up to assist homeowners who are trying to work out payment plans with lenders.

http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/372793.html

Running on a platform that emphasizes what the country should do to address the needs of the poor, Edwards had to face up to the fact that a company in which he has invested $16 million and which last year employed him to the tune of $479,512 was linked to the foreclosure of mortgages in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans.

Nobody had to paint a picture for the former North Carolina senator as to why this looked bad. In response to disclosures appearing first in The Wall Street Journal, he promised to use his personal funds to help the homeowners who had lost title to their houses in foreclosures pursued by units of private-equity fund Fortress Investment Group LLC. He also said he would strip any investment from his portfolio that stood to profit from the homeowners’ misfortune.

Those are fitting responses — although it’s too bad Edwards didn’t anticipate what problems could arise because of his relationship with Fortress and his evident failure to examine what its subsidiaries — in this case, two subprime mortgage companies — were up to.

The disconnect between his admirable advocacy on behalf of poor Americans and foreclosure actions against victims of Hurricane Katrina is jarring, to say the least. Edwards has used the plight of those very victims to dramatize his campaign themes.

http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/editorials/story/681952.html


The Washington Post had one of the earlier articles on this in May.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051002277.html

Also, the Wall Street Journal did an in-depth piece around August some time.

The subject has actually been discussed quite a lot here on DU.