Free Republic

Two powerful Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they knew they got low mortgage-rate deals in a lender's VIP program but thought the special treatment was a "courtesy" or the same as "frequent flier" discounts. Both vehemently denied any wrongdoing or ethical lapse in the mortgage deals, which came to light a year ago and triggered investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "I thought this was like a frequent-flier program," Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said of the special benefits. "I thought nothing of it." Sen. Christopher...

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) seems to at tract friends who, in turn, attract scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thursday, the SEC hit subprime-mortgage giant Countrywide Financial's ex-CEO Angelo Mozilo with a fraud suit for allegedly deceiving investors on the true condition of the company. He was also charged with insider trading. In 2003, Dodd's role on the Banking Committee got him dubbed a "Friend of Angelo" by Countrywide -- and thus eligible for two sweetheart $800,000 loans. The Senate Ethics Committee is -- at a glacial pace -- investigating the circumstances behind Dodd's Countrywide-refinanced mortgages....

The Securites Exchange Commission (SEC) formally charged former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo and two other company executives with civil fraud. The SEC also charged Mozilo with illegal insider trading, an agency spokesman said Thursday. Civil fraud charges also were filed against Countrywide's former Chief Operating Officer David Sambol and ex-Chief Financial Officer Eric Sieracki. Countrywide Financial, the California-based mortgage lender, was a key component to the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007, which was the beginning of the financial decline and current recession in the U.S. Mozilo is the most high-profile individual to face formal charges from the federal government...

Former Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo has become the highest-profile executive to be accused of wrongdoing in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged him with allegedly lying to investors and reaping $140 million in profits from illegal insider trading this afternoon. A civil lawsuit filed by the SEC alleges that Mozilo knew that increasingly lax mortgage underwriting standards at Countrywide, once a heavyweight in the subprime home loan industry, would endanger the company but failed to disclose the risk to investors. "Countrywide portrayed itself as underwriting mainly prime quality mortgages using high underwriting standards," said SEC...

Angelo Mozilo, former boss of Countrywide Financial, has been charged with civil fraud and insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is the highest profile executive to face charges relating to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2007. --snip-- Mr Mozilo has denied doing anything wrong. Two other former executives have also been charged with civil fraud. --snip -- The SEC published extracts from e-mails sent by Mr Mozilo. "The bottom line is that we are flying blind on how these loans will perform in a stressed environment of higher unemployment, reduced values and slowing home sales," he...

Angelo Mozilo The son of a butcher, Mozilo co-founded Countrywide in 1969 and built it into the largest mortgage lender in the U.S. Countrywide wasn't the first to offer exotic mortgages to borrowers with a questionable ability to repay them. In its all-out embrace of such sales, however, it did legitimize the notion that practically any adult could handle a big fat mortgage. In the wake of the housing bust, which toppled Countrywide and IndyMac Bank (another company Mozilo started), the executive's lavish pay package was criticized by many, including Congress. Mozilo left Countrywide last summer after its rescue-sale to...

Stunning Blunder Just Another Strand In Web Of Explanations. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd went one contrivance too far last week at his carefully choreographed press event to explain his mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial. Dodd has engaged in so many contradictions in trying to manage the gathering storm that he probably did not recognize his stunning blunder. At his Monday event, Dodd wouldn't let reporters have copies of the selected documents he let them glimpse. Instead, Dodd released a report from a Chicago firm hired with campaign funds to review his mortgage transactions. The report is carefully constructed to vindicate...

Just in time for the Oscar’s, Chris Dodd makes his bid for Best Actor in a Corrupt Role . . . On this weekend’s Journal Editorial Report on FNC, host Paul Gigot interviewed Kevin Rennie of the Hartford Courant, who has been closely following the story of the sweetheart deal Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, received from Countrywide Financial under the “Friends of Angelo” program, a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. The segment opened with a clip of Dodd speaking with reporters at a recent meeting at which he made available a carefully selected set of papers...

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has finally, sort of, kind of, ended 193 days of stonewalling about his sweetheart loans from former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. At least he did if you were a fast reader and were one of the few reporters he invited to his Hartford office yesterday to review -- but not copy or take -- more than 100 pages of documents related to his 2003 mortgage financings through Countrywide's "Friends of Angelo" program. These are the files that Mr. Dodd pledged to make public after the news broke last summer that the Chairman of the Senate Banking...

Transition: Jamie Gorelick may be back, this time as attorney general. It was her "wall of separation" that that left us blind pre-9/11. And let's not forget her admirable service at Fannie Mae.Not many people can claim to have been at the center of arguably the greatest financial disaster and greatest national security disaster in American history. But Gorelick, said to be on the short list for attorney general by the New York Times, can. Surely that qualifies her for further government service. Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million serving as vice chair of Fannie Mae from 1998 to 2003....

Angelo Mozilo was in one of his Napoleonic moods. It was October 2003, and the CEO of Countrywide Financial was berating me for The Wall Street Journal's editorials raising doubts about the accounting of Fannie Mae. I had just been introduced to him by Franklin Raines, then the CEO of Fannie, whom I had run into by chance at a reception hosted by the Business Council, the CEO group that had invited me to moderate a couple of panels. ....... I've thought about that episode more than once recently amid the meltdown and government rescue of Fannie and its sibling,...

In case you missed it, Angelo Mozilo retired from Countrywide Financial on Tuesday July 1, as Bank of America took over the firm. There does not appear to be a press release announcing his retirement...Mozilo's controversial reign ended with him facing a barrage of lawsuits from investors, borrowers and state regulators as he stepped up sales of his own Countrywide stock in late 2006 and unloaded more than $130 million of stock in the first half of 2007, while the stock was collapsing and he was reassuring shareholders...

'I would never take 'trust me' for an answer, not even in the best of times. Not even from a president on Mount Rushmore." So declared Sen. Christopher J. Dodd last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate during a debate on government surveillance. Dodd declared he will not trust our leaders unless he gets to see certain national security documents. Dodd insists, however, that we trust him when he says he didn't know he received special treatment when he borrowed nearly $800,000 from Countrywide Financial Corp. in 2003. Dodd continues to refuse to release the standard documents (commitment...

NEW YORK TIMES: "About that Mortgage, Senator . . ." It turns out that the chieftain of Countrywide -- which is smack in the middle of the mortgage mess -- extended privileged borrowing status to two Senators, Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, and Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota. Both Senators deny any ethical violations.   The disclosure of the V.I.P. arrangments by the political website Politico.com left constituents angry and suspicious -- particularly because the revelations came just as Congress was rousing itself to do something about the mortgage foreclosure crisis.   It would be nice to think that...

The Illinois attorney general is suing Countrywide Financial, the troubled mortgage lender, and Angelo R. Mozilo, its chief executive, contending that the company and its executives defrauded borrowers in the state by selling them costly and defective loans that quickly went into foreclosure. The lawsuit, which is expected to be filed on Wednesday in Illinois state court, accused Countrywide and Mr. Mozilo of relaxing underwriting standards, structuring loans with risky features, and misleading consumers with hidden fees and fake marketing claims, like its heavily advertised “no closing costs loan.” Countrywide also created incentives for its employees and brokers to sell...

The Countrywide sixBy John Bender web posted June 16, 2008The news that former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson was one of the sleaze bags who enriched themselves with sweat heart deals on mortgages from Countrywide Financial makes it a bipartisan scandal and eliminates the slim possibility that any of them will be brought to justice.  The ruling political class doesn't like to bring its members to justice. But if one political party can gain political advantage by going after a few members of the political class who happen to be in the other party, they will grab...

Scandal: A number of top Democrats have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, suggesting corruption in the party linked to the recent home-mortgage meltdown. Will the mainstream media just ignore it?The firing of Democrat insider and money-man Jim Johnson a week ago as head of Barack Obama's vice presidential search committee came as no surprise. Johnson, who served as chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae during much of Bill Clinton's presidency, was discovered to have received a favorable mortgage loan from Countrywide Financial's founder and CEO Angelo Mozilo. This was bad enough. After all, Obama has railed...

While liberal journalists have moved on from the Christopher Dodd-Countrywide Financial scandal, questions linger about the sweetheart loans he got in 2003 from Angelo Mozilo. At the time, Mr. Mozilo was chairman and CEO of Countrywide, which would become a leading player in the subprime-mortgage crisis and would benefit greatly if Congress passes Sen. Dodd's lending-industry bailout bill. Does anyone believe Sen. Dodd when he says he and his wife did not "anticipate any special treatment" from Countrywide and were unaware they got it? A senator get treated royally everywhere he goes. He gets his jollies from the rump kissing...

Not making many headlines because the perps are Democrats, the sweetheart loan deals that former Obama Vice Presidential vetter Jim Johnson accepted from Countrywide Chairman Angelo Mozilo have ensnared two Democratic senators; Ken Conrad of North Dakota and former presidential candidate Chris Dodd of Connecticut. Conrad's approach was outrageous. Here's how the Wall Street Journal describes Conrad's dealings with Countrywide and Mozilo: Take Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat whose office issued a Friday statement saying that "I never met Angelo Mozilo." What he did not say then but admitted under later questioning by a Journal reporter is that,...

The loud "thud" you just heard over in the corner of the Senate hearing room was Senator Chris Dodd's vice presidential hopes hitting the wall. The Senator was the second major political figure caught up in and possibly brought down by various aspects of the mortgage mess in general and Countrywide Financial in particular. The Senator, a Democrat from Connecticut and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee which regulates mortgage lending, was named in an article by Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the Associated Press and earlier by Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, as one of two senators – the other being...