Posted on 02/24/2009 6:29:52 AM PST by 6SJ7
An intriguing item here from the dogged Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant that highlights a classic example of why ordinary citizens become cynical about politicians and the way business in Washington is conducted.
Silver-haired Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has already been getting a lot of heat for his two 2003 VIP mortgage loans from Countrywide, one of the major actors in triggering the current financial crisis.
Seeking Senate re-election in 2010, the 2008 presidential candidate (he dropped out on the first day of voting after finishing seventh in Iowa, where he had moved with his family as a way of courting voters) is now in a bit of a sticky spot with another accommodation- his "cottage" on the lovely Irish island of Inishnee.
Some digging from Rennie (a lawyer and former Connecticut state legislator) reveals that as well as there being a cloud over Dodd's properties in Connecticut and Washington DC, considerable murkiness surrounds the financial arrangements for the purchase of his "cottage".
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
God that place looks beautiful. Dood up for re-election next year...any chance Connecticut will finally cut this guy loose? (Too much to hope for an indictment?) Any challengers identified? We need to get busy on midterms folks, that’s the only way I can see us stanching the bleeding from these clowns.
Gee, thank you America....LOL.....kidding kidding...
i guess this is payback for the Kennedys!!! LOL
if i am down that part of the country, i will stick up a freerepublic sign to welcome him...
:)
‘[C]onsiderable murkiness surrounds the financial arrangements for the purchase of’ Obama’s Chicago mansion!
Why? Complete news blackout by the the democrat party mainstream media.
"Cottage," my tuckus!
Thanks for posting this, 6SJ7
Thanks also to Instapundit.
Ping.
Over here ping. The other thread was locked. Maggie, you should repost your finds over here!
Another waitress sandwich???
http://www.mail-archive.com/
Page Six
New York Post
January 25, 2001
EX’S PARDON IRKS FORD HEIRESS
AT least one person isn’t happy that Ed Downe obtained a full
pardon from Bill Clinton - his ex-wife Charlotte Ford.
The auto heiress divorced Downe five years ago, shortly after he
copped a plea to insider trading. Most people assumed she was
dumping the mogul over that disgrace.
But Charlotte says the only reason she asked for a divorce was
his philandering - right under her nose in the Sutton Place
apartment below theirs he used for his office.
“A half-hour after I went to bed, the girl, who is now his wife,
would come over in a wig and sunglasses. She’d leave at 5 a.m.,”
Charlotte told one friend. “He’d paid off all the doormen and
elevator men to keep their mouths shut.”
Downe married Mary Baker, the ex-wife of prominent plastic
surgeon Dr. Dan Baker, about three years ago. Charlotte had
introduced the divorcee to her husband. So it’s painful for her
now to see Downe rehabilitating his image. “It’s like a knife
when my name is associated with his,” she told her pal.
Downe was championed in his bid for a pardon by his friend Sen.
Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who often went clubbing with Downe at
Gotham’s most glittering nightspots.
“Ed would tell Charlotte they were going out to dinner, and then
wouldn’t come back until 2 a.m.,” a friend of hers said.
(snip)
..
(no link)
A Man of Means And Connections / Questions about another NYer’s pardon
Newsday (Melville, NY) - Sunday, March 4, 2001
Author: Craig Gordon. WASHINGTON BUREAU
Washington-In Southampton, Edward R . Downe Jr . and his wife lived in his-and-hers houses. In Manhattan, it was his-and-hers apartments in tony Sutton Place.
He was a Hamptons fixture a decade ago, a balding backslapper with a modern art collection at home and an heiress to the Ford automobile fortune on his arm. Charlotte Ford threw the glittering galas, but Downe presided over more earthy gatherings on Ox Pasture Road, burgers and cold salads by the pool on Saturday afternoons, then nickel-a-point gin rummy inside for men who could afford much more.
In 1992, federal investigators cast those poolside gatherings in a more sinister light. Downe and his friends had used that idyllic setting and others-even a yacht in the Caribbean once-to swap stock tips from their posts as corporate insiders to enrich themselves and others, investigators charged.
In all, the so-called “Society Seven” were accused of running one of the biggest insider-trading rings on record at the time, netting a total of $13 million in illegal profits. Downe was one of its leaders, the government charged, saying he passed along inside information gleaned from his corporate board seats at Bear, Stearns investment house and another company, Kidde Inc.
Downe faced 10 years in prison for tax and securities fraud but received 3 years of probation and 3,000 hours of community service after pleading guilty and cooperating with authorities. Downe and his case, a high-society morality play of the rich trying to get richer, soon left the headlines.
Eight years later, Downe ‘s name has resurfaced, this time as one of about 140 people pardoned by former President Bill Clinton on his last day in office. In its broad outlines, the handling of Downe ‘s pardon resembles the most controversial of all of Clinton’s actions-pardoning fugitive financier Marc Rich.
Downe ‘s case, like Rich’s, involved a man of means with political connections whose pardon did not go through customary Justice Department channels. Unlike Downe , Rich fled the country to escape justice.
Downe ‘s lawyer, Thomas Puccio, said his client filed a pardon application at the end of last year with the Justice Department, though the Justice Department says it has no application on file. One prominent Democrat took an interest in getting a pardon for Downe -Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, who wrote to Clinton on Downe ‘s behalf. The White House counsel’s office later contacted Puccio with questions about Downe ‘s case.
Dodd, through a spokesman, said he never spoke to Clinton directly about the case. So, like many of the pardons , what swayed Clinton’s decision remains unknown.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan who handled the case say they received no notice of Downe ‘s pardon , nor was the Securities and Exchange Commission notified, even though the final settlement of Downe ‘s financial judgment still is pending.
“We would have appreciated having an opportunity to review the application,” said the SEC’s enforcement chief, Richard Walker.
Downe is expected to end up paying just $1.8 million to settle his $11 million judgment with the SEC, with most of the money coming from the sale of Downe ‘s assets, one government attorney said. The SEC judgment isn’t covered by the pardon .
At least one former securities-fraud prosecutor questions the propriety of Downe ‘s pardon , given what he called the seriousness of the crime and Downe ‘s history as a longtime contributor to Democratic candidates.
“One has to be skeptical considering the connection with wealth and political contributions, and what turned out to be pardons for people who it’s not apparent on the face of it have any mitigating circumstances that would have warranted pardons ,” said Howard Heiss, former chief of the securities and commodities fraud task force for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan from 1992 to 1995.
Downe , now 71 and living in Manhattan, was an active contributor to Democratic candidates before his indictment, usually in $1,000 or $2,000 increments. In 1999, he contributed $1,000 each to Vice President Al Gore and to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate campaign. Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, Jim Kennedy, said she had nothing to do with Downe ‘s pardon .
The names of Downe and his current wife, Mary Conley Downe , also appeared on the guest list for a June 20, state dinner given in honor of the king of Morocco. Neither Kennedy, nor former President Clinton’s spokeswoman, Julia Payne, could say why they were invited.
Payne also said she could offer no details as to why the former president pardoned Downe .
Downe did have Dodd in his corner. Dodd wrote a “Dear Mr. President” letter two days after Christmas seeking clemency for his friend of more than 20 years, a man with whom he speaks nearly every day.
“Ed made a mistake a number of years ago, for which he has accepted full responsibility...Over the years, Ed has expressed to me, his family and friends his deep remorse for his actions,” wrote Dodd, who attended Downe ‘s 1993 sentencing.
Dodd received a $2,000 contribution from Downe in 1995, but Dodd spokesman Marvin Fast said the letter was not related to the contribution.
(snip)
..
(no link)
Dodd ‘s valuation of Irish cottage raises eyebrows
Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT) - Saturday, June 23, 2007
Author: Don Michak ; Journal Inquirer
In the newest round of annual financial interest statements filed last month by members of Congress, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd again disclosed his ownership of a cottage in the west of Ireland.
Dodd has been making summer retreats to the two-bedroom cottage on the island of Innishnee in County Galway’s Connemara district for more than a decade, so much so that locals are said to refer to him fondly as “the senator from Inishnee .”
A regional newspaper, The Galway Independent, also reports that the Democratic senator from Connecticut is well known there as an adjunct professor in the political science and sociology department of the National University of Ireland, about 50 miles from Innishnee in Galway City.
But it is Dodd ‘s current status as a candidate for 2008 Democratic presidential nomination that has drawn more attention to his holdings, and particularly to the value he assigned his principal asset — the Inishnee cottage — in his latest disclosure statement.
Take, for example, DoChara’s Ireland Blog, an Internet site that bills itself as an “Unofficial Guide to Ireland.”
In a comment posted Monday, the site’s Irish editor and a professional Web designer, Katherine Nolan, suggested that Dodd “certainly has an eye for property,” noting that while the senator has valued the cottage at between $100,000 and $250,000 on congressional disclosure forms, it is more likely worth far more.
“Now maybe Mr. Dodd has not had time to keep up with the property market in Ireland, or is unaware of Ireland’s climbing cost of living, but let me tell you that if he is planning to sell at anything even remotely close to that range he will be beating away potential buyers with a stick,” she wrote.
“You couldn’t buy a hovel in Galway for that money, and apparently the cottage in question is a very nicely restored affair on the idyllic island of Inishnee , close to the coast in the fashionable Roundstone area of Connemara.”
“Think 600,000 euros to 800,000 euros and you’re getting warm!” she added. “That’s getting on for a cool $1 million, Maybe he thought nobody would believe him; he’s probably right.”
To be fair, Dodd specifically noted on his latest congressional filing that the $100,000-$250,000 value was based on an “appraisal at the time of purchase.”
He had not included that phrase on a similar filing made earlier this year as a presidential candidate, nor had he made the same qualification on several previous congressional filings.
The senator also reported in May that last year he collected between $5,000 and $15,000 by renting out the cottage, on which he took out a 20 year, variable-rate mortgage in 2002.
(snip)
Complete news blackout.
Total violation of the responsibility of the media to do investigative reporting.
Sen. Dodd's measly little Irish "cottage" on 10 acres he values at between $100,000 to $250,000.
###
Near comparable .. on 6 acres in Galway:
EUR 598,000
£ 524,270*
US$ 759,807*
Drudge or someone should make a screaming headline out of this today since Dodd is up on deck grilling Bernanke(who is brown nosing Obama big time today btw) today at the Senate Banking Committee.
I’d like to know how much he earned last week by his statement about ‘nationalizing the banks’..after which the markets tanked?
Did he make a bunch of money for his other pal George Soros’s by his ‘leak’?
Great going getting the comparable house because it is clearly smaller and sits on less land.
Dodd is a thieving pirate!
How do the democrats get away with this stuff?
Kessinger puts up two thirds for the house and 10 acres on a island off an island. Dodd puts down $12,000 for his share.
******
Downe, Edward R Mr. Jr.
NEW YORK, NY
10128 Self Employed/Investor $2,300 03/31/2007 P CHRIS DODD FOR PRESIDENT INC - Democrat
Downe, Edward R Mr. Jr.
NEW YORK, NY
10128 Self Employed/Investor $2,300 03/31/2007 G CHRIS DODD FOR PRESIDENT INC - Democrat
DOWNE, EDWARD
NEW YORK, NY
10128 SELF EMPLOYED/PRIVATE INVESTOR $2,300 03/19/2008 P FRIENDS OF CHRIS DODD - Democrat
Edward Downe Jr., a publishing and financial executive, pleaded guilty to insider trading in 1993. He was sentenced to three years’ probation, and paid $11 million in fines. Downe has contributed $21,500 to Democrats since 1991, including $1,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign. His application went straight to Clinton, and White’s office (U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White) learned about it only the night before his pardon.
The Rush Limbaugh LIVE Radio Thread - Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 10:59:16 AM · 32 of 35
maggief to mewzilla
(no link)
Dodd defends his Countrywide mortgages
Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT) - Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Author: Don Michak ; Journal Inquirer
EXCERPT
Dodd has filed six financial disclosure statements since obtaining the mortgages in 2003. In the five reports he has made to the secretary of the Senate, as well as the 2007 report he filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics as a presidential candidate, Dodd disclosed only one mortgage: the 20-year, 4.8 percent variable-rate loan he obtained from the Allied Irish Bank in 2002 on his cottage on the island of Innishnee in the Connemara district of Ireland's County Galway
..
Senators ‘ finances - Here is the financial state of Connecticut's U.S. delegation in 2002, compared to 1992:
Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) - Sunday, June 15, 2003
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd , Democrat
1992
Earned Income: $129,900*
Major assets: Two bank accounts worth less than $30,000.
Major sources of unearned income: none
Major liabilities: none
*$400 paid for cameo appearance in movie “Dave.”
2002
Earned Income: $150,000
Major Assets: Senate credit union accounts of between $65,000 and $150,000; Irish cottage, D.C. condo and Utah property valued between $130,000 and $350,000.
Major sources of unearned income: D.C. condo rental between $5,000 and $15,000.
Major liabilities: Two variable rate mortgages on Irish cottage of between $115,000 and $300,000.
Other: Dodd took three trips in 2002 at the expense of outside groups. He spoke at the Hibernarian Society Banquet in Charleston, S.C., on St. Patrick's Day. In May, he delivered a commencement address at the University of North Dakota. In September, the Mohegan Tribe paid Dodd ‘s one-way airfare from New York City to East Haddam to co-chair inaugural Celebrity Players Classic, a charity golf tournament.
Dodd continues to be a director (as he was in 1992) of the Alpha & Omega nonprofit devoted to care of physically and mentally handicapped children in Ellington; Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp Fund in Ashford. And, since 1992 he has become a director of the McGovern Family Foundation in D.C. nonprofit research related to alcoholism in women, and U.S. Spain Council.
(snip)
What about his Connecticut property?
And who does he have these mortgages with and at what rates?
“Two variable rate mortgages on Irish cottage of between $115,000 and $300,000.”
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/connecticut-post/T8P7QR7MJU9STEMPC
Dodd ‘s property deals June 10, 2003: Eight-room brick Washington townhouse, 103 years old, 1,225 square feet, appraised at $792,000, mortgage refinanced for $506,000, 30-year adjustable, fixed at 4.25 percent for first five years. Monthly payments of $2,489.22. July 3, 2003: Haddam home, a former schoolhouse at 53 Main St. appraised at $500,000, refinanced for $275,042, 30-year adjustable, fixed at 4.5 percent for first 10 years. Monthly payments of $2,020.25 Credit scores U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd : 768 Jackie Clegg Dodd
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20070517_DISCLOSURES/dodd.pdf
Dodd, Christopher J. SCHEDULE A. Page Number. 1 of. Valuationof Assets. Income: type and amount. ... Property Lot - Timberlakes Community,. V. Wasatch Utah ...
To: NavySEAL F-16
Um...why did this investigative report have to be done by a BRITISH newspaper? Where are all our ferocious American journalists? Still in Wasilla, I guess.
23 posted on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:47:26 AM by denydenydeny (People in dictatorships long for truth while pampered, decadent people in the West long for myth.)
~~~~
I’ve observed that the foreign press are generally doing more incisive and revealing news articles about Obama and his schemes than the lapdog press here.
I think we should begin looking more to them for solid news.
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