"Houston, we have a problem."
White House COS "pledging allegiance" to the USA on inauguration day.
Posted on 03/27/2009 2:16:18 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
Bob Secter and Andrew Zajac of the Chicago Tribune report that, while researching what went at Freddie Mac during the period White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel served on the government sponsored enterprise’s board of directors, they were unable to get minutes of board meetings and other information:
The Obama administration rejected a Tribune request under the Freedom of Information Act to review Freddie Mac board minutes and correspondence during Emanuel’s time as a director. The documents, obtained by Falcon for his investigation, were “commercial information” exempt from disclosure, according to a lawyer for the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Freddie Mac executives cooked the books, mismanaged the firm, and ultimately drove it into the ground, costing taxpayers billions of dollars. The “commercial information” exemption is reserved for private companies–Freddie Mac is by no means a private company anymore.
"On (Rahm) Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments.
The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass. The accounting scandal wasn't the only one that brewed during Emanuel's tenure. During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to enhance its political muscle.
That scheme, also reviewed by the board, led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the North Side of Chicago. The board was throttled for its acquiescence to the accounting manipulation in a 2003 report by Armando Falcon Jr., head of a federal oversight agency for Freddie Mac. The scandal forced Freddie Mac to restate $5 billion in earnings and pay $585 million in fines and legal settlements.
It also foreshadowed even harder times at the firm. Many of those same risky investment practices tied to the accounting scandal eventually brought the firm to the brink of insolvency and led to its seizure last year by the Bush administration, which pledged to inject up to $100 billion in new capital to keep the firm afloat. The Obama administration has doubled that commitment."
SOURCE http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story
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Rahm Emanuel's Profitable Raping of Freddie_Mac
Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.Emanuel should have to pay back the money he raped from Freddie Mac.
SOURCE http://www.duggback.com/politics/Rahm_Emanuel_s_Profitable_Raping_ofFreddie_Mac/
“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears,” Obama said in the FOIA memo, adding later that “In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.”
Just another sleazy, lying sack of sh*t from the Chicago Machine.
"Houston, we have a problem."
White House COS "pledging allegiance" to the USA on inauguration day.
bttt
ping
Thanks Ernest. You’re right, news, but not all that surprising. The Freddie Mac records are locked up along with the Sock Puppet’s birth certificate.
Excellent post. I feel the same way and am frustrated more then ever. And there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight as it gets worse with each day. Seemingly, one day it will be to late as the plan of those behind this puppet will have been successful. I don’t see street signs saving this once “great shining city on the hill”.
Just another frickin’ 0 administration criminal who got his bonus for bringing down the economy and tried to blame it on someone else.
The List, ping
These guys are experts at scrubbing docs and the web! It’s the biggest story around that will never be told.
That's all we can do until 2010 when we slay their numbers in both houses.
Yep. Public school history books will refer to Obama’s legacy as a “movement of hope,” and an “era of change.”
“Hope”fully we will engage in a little bit of “change” of our own come 2010!
I have a feeling it would involved more than rahm.
I just sent this to fox news because they won another foia demand not long ago.
http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/docs/20090223_111353_fox_order.pdf
It figures. I would be surprised if it where not the case.
Congress caused the mortgage meltdown. Barney Frank supported the reckless practices at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the Socialists in power now are blaming it on capitalism.
Beginning in 1992 Congress pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase purchases of mortgages going to low to moderate income people. In 1996 HUD gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target: 42% of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with incomes below the median. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. In 1996 HUD required that 12% of all mortgages purchased by Freddie and Fannie had to be “special affordable” loans, meaning loans to borrowers with income less than 60% of their area’s median. The 12% dictum was increased to 20% in 2000 and 22% in 2005.
Did I do something wrong or against policy? Why were all of the categories removed from this article?
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