Friends of Angelo (FOA)

[Chicopee John]

GOP Could Get Dodd Mortgage Documents

 

By EDMUND H. MAHONY | The Hartford Courant 3:09 PM EDT, June 16, 2009

 

Documents associated with U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd's much discussed "VIP" loans with defunct mortgage giant Countrywide Financial could become generally available - if a ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives has his way.

 

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Cal., a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has asked Bank of America, which acquired Countrywide, for all records related to the mortgage lender's VIP program targeting government officials, among them Dodd and U.S. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

 

Issa asked for the records in a letter dated June 2 as part of a broader investigation into the cause of the recession and credit collapse. Issa said he wanted the material by Wednesday. Bank of America has not said whether it will comply fully with the request.

 

Issa's letter wasn't signed by committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, a New York Democrat, prompting Republicans charges of partisanship. A Towns spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but told the Congressional newspaper The Hill: "Currently the chairman is focused on the financial crisis and stimulus oversight."

 

 

The Countrywide loan has been a continuing irritant for Dodd since Portfolio magazine alleged a year ago that he and his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, benefited from improper VIP treatment when Countrywide gave them $781,000 in loans on homes in Washington and East Haddam. Dodd denies he got favorable treatment.

 

The most forceful denial came in February, nearly eight months after the magazine report, when Dodd allowed reporters to inspect, but not copy, documents that he said "put to rest" the notion of special treatment. Dodd said at the time that he released all the mortgage documents that he possessed.

 

But the 100 or so pages of loan documents and an expert analysis provided by Dodd failed to resolve a question central to the controversy: Did market competition or Dodd's political influence move Countrywide to set the loan terms and let the Dodds' mortgage rates "float down" with falling rates after they had locked in an interest rate on each loan in 2003?

 

On both Dodd loans, someone at Countrywide had scrawled "VIP" and "FOA" on documents. "FOA" is a reference to Friends of Angelo Mozilo, then the chief executive of Countrywide. Mozilo built Countrywide into a financial powerhouse, but in recent years allowed the business to be undermined by losses on unsustainable, high-risk loans.

 

Dodd has said repeatedly he doesn't know Mozilo and got loan terms that were generally available to the public.

 

"As he has said many times before, [Dodd] does not know the man and has never known him," spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said. "And he truly hopes justice is done in this case."

 

A GOP committee spokesman said Issa and other committee Republican have decided to press on with their Countrywide VIP inquiry, regardless of whether Democrats participate. Democrats already have declined to participate in an interview with a Countrywide whisteblower, an Issa spokesman said.

 

It is one of several ongoing investigations in Washington. Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Mozilo for fraud and insider trading. A nonprofit watchdog group has asked the Senate ethics committee to look into Dodd's Countrywide loans

[calfoxwc]

What is this? How brazen can the Dems be, to refuse to look into Dodd's loans, but

 

attack any issue at all with any Republican?

 

Takes partisanship to a huge, dangerous new level.

 

At this rate, a DEM watergate would be no big deal, and

 

the rationalizations would fly all over, and critics of the Dem watergate

 

would be labeled "conspiracy theorists".