Posted on 09/18/2008 5:44:59 PM PDT by RatsDawg
The campaign puts out a statement from former Fannie Mae chief Franklin Raines, disowning ties to Obama, after a McCain ad attacked him for the ties.
The Washington Post reported -- with the kind of blind sourcing that suggests the source was Raines -- that Raines had "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters."
Raines said in the statement through the campaign, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton added an attack:
This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses.
UPDATE: McCain spokesman Brian Rogers notes that Obama didn't contradict the claim when it first appeared in the Post.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Actually with obambi it will be
I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT MAN, LARRY SINCLAIR.
Oh My!
This would be side-splittingly hilarious if it were not so serious!
Right...but that is Wikipedia. I personally don’t trust wikipedia, except in some basic biographic data such as birthdates and so on.
Just read the entry on Che Guevara to see how wonderfully he is presented. Never murdered anyone.
Pretty soon the Obama bus is going to need to pull off to the side for repairs to the exhaust and suspension...and to peel some rotten matter off the drive train.
Very nice post the way you set it up. She looks down and McCain looks up, neat.
Imagine a lot of people swipe your ‘electric girl’, it’s a good gif.
You are correct. Mine is July 15th 08 talking about him taking calls from the Obama campaign. Good catch.
Tell him you want “The Nagin Special.”
One FReeper gathers what another FReeper spills. ;^)
I went to WAPO, CNN, NYT, DMN and LAT. See if you can check the larger newspapers in your area for articles also.
December 19, 2006
Fannie Mae's main regulator sued the company's former chairman and chief executive, Franklin D. Raines, and two top financial officers yesterday in an effort to extract more than $215 million in bonus payouts and fines over their involvement in a huge-scale accounting scandal.
The regulator, the Office of Federal Housing and Enterprise Oversight, is seeking about $100 million in penalties.
Ofheo filed 101 civil charges against Mr. Raines; Fannie Mae's former chief financial officer, J. Timothy Howard; and the former controller, Leanne G. Spencer.
The Ofheo director, James B. Lockhart III, said in a conference call yesterday: "We believed as an agency that these three individuals, separately and together, did serious harm to the company. There is a long list of charges that show they allowed this company to grow out of control."
Echoing many findings that the agency's 27-month investigation into Fannie Mae uncovered in May, the lawsuit contended that the three executives took part in widespread misconduct and mismanagement from 1998 to 2004. It accused them of filing misleading financial reports, improperly applying accounting principles while knowingly failing to establish sound internal controls and misleading regulators. All the while, the three were said to have been manipulating Fannie Mae earnings to maximize their bonuses.
Ofheo filed a similar suit against the former chief executive and chief financial officers of another federal-linked lender, Freddie Mac, in December 2003, seeking civil penalties and the return of more than $37 million in bonuses. That case has been bogged down in intense battles for three years and is still wending its way through administrative law courts.
Ofheo said it was seeking more than $100 million in civil penalties "in light of the multibillion-dollar harm" Fannie Mae caused to investors. The company recently completed a $6.3 billion restatement to correct its financial results up to 2004, among the largest for any public company.
It is asking Mr. Raines to give back about $84.6 million of the $91.1 million that he collected.
Even though Mr. Raines was ousted over the accounting problems, he received a pension valued around $25 million, according to a Harvard study.
OFHEO brought administrative charges against former Freddie Mac chairman and chief executive Leland C. Brendsel in connection with a separate accounting scandal. Though the agency contended that Brendsel could have been held responsible for more than $1 billion of damages and fines, it settled with Brendsel last fall for $16.4 million.
JANUARY 10, 2005
Franklin Raines
Fannie Mae
On Labor Day, he was a favorite to be Treasury Secretary should John Kerry win the White House. At yearend, he had left under a cloud. The charmed career of Franklin D. Raines — a poor kid from Seattle who climbed through Harvard and a Rhodes Scholarship to become White House budget director and CEO of Fannie Mae (FNM ) — crashed to a halt on Dec. 21. That was six days after the Securities & Exchange Commission’s top accountant declared that mortgage giant Fannie misstated earnings for 3 1/2 years, leading to an estimated $9 billion restatement that will wipe out 40% of profits from 2001 to mid-2004.
When sibling Freddie Mac’s accounting first came under fire in mid-2003, Raines’s arrogant insistence that Fannie was above reproach spurred OFHEO to do a white-glove examination. And when that uncovered the improper bookkeeping, Raines insisted on an SEC review, which he maintained would vindicate Fannie. “Frank was supposed to be the great political risk manager,” says independent banking analyst Bert Ely in Alexandria, Va. “Instead, he compounded the problems.”
When Fannie’s board balked over ousting Raines, OFHEO forced its hand. Raines described his exit as an “early retirement’ that was self-initiated and says that it shows he was accountable for the SEC findings. Fittingly, Raines — a man who built a $54 billion behemoth with his mastery of behind-the-scenes politicking — went down spinning.
And how come? Did he wear ties like this?
Cheers!
Thank you for the suggestions. I am terrible at research. I just Googled “Raines Obama” and sorted through the results. For some reason I don’t focus well on good search parameters or specific sources.
dig around the Denver Post since the DNCC was there.
Franklin Raines
AKA Franklin Delano Raines
Born: 14-Jan-1949
Birthplace: Seattle, WA
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: Black
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Government, Business
Party Affiliation: Democratic
Council on Foreign Relations
Gore 2000
Obama for Illinois
http://www.nndb.com/org/037/000171521/
Location:
Chicago, IL
Obama’s reply reminds me of Eddie Murphy in raw:
“It wasn’t me”
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