Freddie Mac records exempt from FOIA (Obama Admin Denies FOIA Request)
Sunlight Foundationm | 03/26/2009 | Bill Allison
FR Posted 03/27/2009 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.
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REFERENCE Rahm Emanuel was director when Freddie Mac board was tipped to fraudulent BONUS scheme
"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
Hmm, they can make Bush’s memos public but not this? Ohhhh, brother.