OBAMA ADVISOR FRANKLIN RAINES IGNORED FANNIE MAE ACCOUNTING WARNINGS AS EARLY AS 2002

MSNBC.COM ^ | 10/6/2004 | AP

[johncocktoasten]

WASHINGTON - The former Fannie Mae accountant who raised questions about the mortgage giant’s bookkeeping said Wednesday that he took his concerns directly to chief executive Franklin Raines in 2002 and asked him to investigate.

The disclosure by Roger Barnes, who left Fannie Mae last November, came as Raines and chief financial officer Timothy Howard defended the company’s accounting and told Congress that regulators’ allegations of earnings manipulation represent an interpretation of complex rules.

[driftless2]

"blabberlips"

What were they discussing, and on what point did Cavuto tell O'Reilly he was burning the truth?

[NoLibZone]

We will only see this information here at FR!

[penelopesire]

The Democrat congress ‘people’ are starting to make appearances all over TV today to ‘talk’ about ‘the economy’. They are running scared and know this is about to blow up in their faces!!

THIS DEMOCRAT CORRUPTION MAKES ANYTHING THAT A FEW REPUBLICANS DID IN 2006....LOOK LIKE CHILD’S PLAY!!

MCCAIN AND THE REPUBLICANS NEED TO COME OUT ON THIS HARD AND FAST!!

[tsmith130]

Un-friggin’-believable! I really wish McCain would hit this harder in some ads. I suspect few people know this guy AND know he’s on Obama’s staff.

[Mr. Jeeves]

The son of a Seattle janitor [1], Raines graduated from Harvard University, Harvard Law School; and Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He served in the Carter Administration as associate director for economics and government in the Office of Management and Budget and assistant director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff from 1977 to 1979. Then he joined Lazard Freres and Co., where he worked for 11 years and became a general partner. In 1991 he became Fannie’s Mae’s Vice Chairman, a post he left in 1996 in order to join the Clinton Administration as the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, where he served until 1998. In 1999, he returned to Fannie Mae as CEO, “the first black man to head a Fortune 500 company.”[1]

And every bit of that achieved through affirmative action.

I wonder if a Captain in the Navy who had friends in the Democratic Party could get away with saying that running his aircraft carrier into a sandbar involved "highly detailed issues that I would not normally focus on in my role as Captain." ;)

[Dems_R_Losers]

Raines tried to play the race card when he got hauled up to Capitol Hill for hearings after this report came out. He trotted out his wife and kids and cried about being the son of a janitor.

[CJ Wolf]

[MozarkDawg]

In his written testimony, Raines noted that Fannie Mae’s outside auditor, KPMG, had endorsed the company’s application of accounting rules.

These guys again ... recall when they issued the phony-baloney *clean bill of health* accounting review for the shenanigans that had been going on in Arkansas, D.C. for the Clintons??

[Born In America]

I would not count on BOR to do any depth on this. His underpanties are in a twist over oil companies. He is transparent and not the qualitative journalist he thinks he is. Too much ego....

[b4its2late]

I’d like to see the report from the auditors of the significant accounting differences. Those reports are usually given to the board and management and rarely see the light of day outside the locked board cabinet and management offices.

[maggief]

Dodd tied to mortgage deals
Journal Inquirer (Manchester, CT) - June 13, 2008
Author: Andrew Miga ; Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd reportedly received two mortgages under a special Countrywide Financial Corp. program that gave preferential interest rates to “friends” of the company’s chairman.

A spokesman for Dodd , D-Conn., said Friday that the senator did not seek any special treatment.

“The Dodds received a competitive rate on their loans,” spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said in a statement. “They did not seek or anticipate any special treatment and they were not aware of any.”

The news of the loans comes as Dodd , who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, is playing a high-profile role seeking to ease the nation’s housing foreclosure crisis.

Conde Nast Portfolio magazine first reported Dodd ‘s participation in a special program that awarded preferential rates to people considered “friends” of the company’s chairman and chief executive, Angelo Mozilo.

Portfolio reported that Countrywide made two loans at special rates to Dodd in 2003. One was a $503,000 loan to refinance a Washington townhouse. The second was for refinancing a loan on a home in East Haddam, Conn.

Countrywide waived three-eighths of a point, or about $2,000, on the townhouse loan, and one-fourth of a point, about $700, on the second, according to internal documents cited by Portfolio. Both loans were for 30 years, with the first five years at a fixed rate.

The magazine said other participants in the company’s “V.I.P.” program included Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and former U.N. ambassador and assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

Portfolio said that according to company documents and e-mails, the participants got deals that were better than those available to ordinary borrowers

Fannie Mae’s former CEO, Jim Johnson, resigned Wednesday as the leader of likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s search for a running mate after The Wall Street Journal reported that he and another former CEO, Franklin Raines , received low-rate home loans from Countrywide, a large originator of higher-risk subprimes mortgages and a major seller of home loans to Fannie Mae.

//

PURE ELECTION PLAY - DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS & FANNIE MAE
New York Post (NY) - November 1, 2000
Author: John Crudele
FANNIE Mae - next stop, $95 or $55?

Shares of the quasi-governmental mortgage agency have been soaring lately and this week passed its previous high of $76 a share last December.

Why is the stock up? Earnings look good. And people of all walks of life are beating down the company’s doors for mortgages. Congressional meddlers have been kept at bay and even pesky Alan Greenspan - who has been bothering this company - has lately been silent.

And all of this optimism about Fannie Mae - as well as related organization Freddie Mac - could be happening at precisely the wrong time.

These so-called government-sponsored enterprises could turn out to be one of the stock market’s purest election bets. If Democrats gain seats in Congress and Al Gore wins, then the pros think the attacks on Fannie Mae ‘s massive expansion will end.

Of course, a win by Bush and the Republicans could intensify the harping about Fannie Mae ‘s huge explosion in lending, since the increase has come under Clinton -pal Franklin Raines .

Alan Greenspan has come down on the anti- Fannie Mae side, chiding the company for lending too much to too many lately.

In essence, Fannie Mae is adding liquidity to the financial system that circumvents the Fed’s power.

And Wall Street and banks are also against it, because Fannie Mae - with the government backing up its boo-boos - can finance mortgages at rates lower than others can.

OK - time out. Politics is a fun game to play, and everything these Washington gurus are saying about Fannie Mae is probably correct. But they are missing one thing - default rates.

If the U.S. economy is slowing (especially if it’s doing so while inflation remains high), then a larger number of the riskier Fannie Mae mortgages are likely to go into default in the coming months.

So, no matter who becomes president, Fannie Mae is still more of a bet on the economy than anything else.

So, $55 or $95 - the upside that some experts have been predicting?

This stock was down to $55 just last May. And it could be headed for a round trip.

[Safetgiver]

Jamie Gorelick sucked $25 million in pay and bonuses... I think Rush said 75 mil. over 5 years. I could be wrong.

[mainerforglobalwarming]

I can’t believe how folks like Raines can screw up as badly as he has, and advance as far as he has in life. Here’s hoping he’s he ends up doing an important, honest job like digging ditches or being a construction worker soon. Let him work with the people that he’s screwed over. Maybe he’ll learn something about life.

[jackv]

I heard it was 75 mill!

[savedbygrace]

Raines and Obama both disprove the Peter Principle. Both have been promoted more than one level above their incompetence level.

[wideminded]

On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie’s former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie’s former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie’s insurance policies.

1. Who's paying the $3 million, Raines et al, or Fannie's insurance policies?

[blam]

Notice the date of this article.

Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines

Don't blame him for the mortgage giant's scandal … yet.

By Henry Blodget Posted Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004, at 5:57 PM ET

On Wednesday, when Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines appeared before a House subcommittee to address allegations that he and his finance team had cooked the mortgage giant's books, he had three choices: One, he could do what other CEOs have done—take the Fifth (a prudent legal tactic, even for the innocent, albeit wimpy and unsatisfying). Two, he could claim he was shocked to discover that his finance department was staffed by hoodlums (also typical, even less admirable). Three, he could stand behind the accounting, his team, and his company, explain the decisions, and suggest that the allegations were wrong.

Raines chose option No. 3, which increased his personal risk and raised a for-now unanswerable question: Is he the perpetrator of an accounting crime, the target of a political witch hunt, or the victim of an overzealous bureaucracy?

[Miss Didi]

RUSH:...Can I translate that for you? Franklin Raines was a Treasury employee, some sort of cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration. He ends up at Fannie Mae and pays himself a hundred million bucks from 1999 to 2005, and they finally had to get rid of him because the scandal could not be contained. Democrats propped up this, Carly! Bush didn't do any of this. "Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million." Gorelick again. "In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk. But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America." Hello, Mr. Chris Dodd, number one receiver of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. "At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households. The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists." (cont.)


Even Robert Reich admits Democrats are to blame.

You Can Say It, Ms. Fiorina: Democrats Caused Mortgage Mess

Barack Obama: Sitting Duck

[penelopesire]

The article says Raines is now heavily involved with this marxist looking company:

http://www.revolution.com/our-story/default.aspx

Pretty scary reading....even to this financial neophyte!

From the website:

“.... revolution’s success rests in the power of its beliefs. When enough people participate in the revolution, embracing its beliefs and acting upon them, a “tipping point” is reached: The status quo is no longer acceptable and everyone becomes a revolutionary.

Revolution is operating daily to give people better choices, more control and more convenience in the important aspects of their lives—and building significant, life-changing companies in the process.
Revolution and Its Companies
It takes talent and passion, not just capital, to build great companies. At Revolution, we have collaborated extensively with each company we acquire, developing an accelerated growth strategy, building a world-class management team, assembling boards of directors to extend the company’s expertise and influence. Moreover, we, forge strategic alliances, positioning each company as a revolutionary in its field, disrupting the normal way of doing business.”

Unbelievable!!

[Republican Red]

correct tile:

Fannie Mae accountant: I warned CEO Raines

MSNBC never once mentioned Obama in the article. They never let the reader know that Raines is on Obama's campaign.