Free Republic

Years before Fannie Mae foundered amid a massive accounting scandal, President Obama's choice for national security adviser oversaw an office inside the mortgage giant that orchestrated a negative publicity blitz to fight attempts by Congress to increase government oversight, records show. Thomas E. Donilon, who won the job as national security adviser this month, worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005 at a time the company's officials insisted finances were sound. He also earned more than $1.8 million in bonuses before the government took over the troubled company in the wake of an accounting scandal....

Political Pick: Tom Donilon is in line to replace retiring Marine Gen. Jim Jones as the administration's national security adviser. Is this career functionary the right person for the job? We feel at greater risk already. Anyone who thinks Donilon is anything other than a political crony out of his depth needs to look no further than the Washington Post, which reports on its whorunsgov.com Web site that "The Democratic operative worked on his first Democratic National Convention at 24, and he's been helping elect candidates ever since." The New York Times says Donilon "started not as a foreign policy...

If anyone still doubted that America's foreign policy is in crisis, the appointment Friday of Thomas Donilon to be our new national-security adviser should be final proof. Set aside the fact that Donilon served as in-house counsel at Fannie Mae, the epicenter of the subprime-mortgage mess and subsequent financial meltdown — something any other administration would see as evidence of less than stellar judgment. Set aside the reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates had said Donilon's appointment would be a "disaster" or that Donilon fought hard against our military's strategy for winning in Afghanistan — although that seems precisely why...

The news is coming so thick and fast these days one can hardly keep up with it, let alone comment intelligently. But we should at least note that Marine General Jim Jones resigned as President Obama's National Security Adviser today, and will be replaced by political operative Tom Donilon. It is hard to remember now, but shortly after his election, Obama's selection of Gen. Jones as national security adviser, along with a handful of similar appointments, caused us and other observers who are ( even more knowledgeable) to hail what seemed to be a reassuringly moderate trend in Obama's nascent...

Donilon's résumé: Policy, law and Fannie Mae By: Josh Gerstein and Abby Phillip October 8, 2010 08:17 PM EDT To many in the foreign policy community, Tom Donilon’s selection Friday as national security adviser to President Barack Obama was a deserving reward for a consummate professional, a corporate lawyer who worked his way up through the foreign policy ranks over the years and is credited with holding the National Security Council together during the uncertain leadership of James Jones. But one part of Donilon’s résumé that went unmentioned in the Rose Garden Friday — the six years he spent as...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will name close aide Tom Donilon as his new national security adviser on Friday in a move that could have implications for the struggli

Change we can believe in? Last week, the Obama transition team announced that it had tapped veteran Beltway Democrat Thomas Donilon to help lead its review of operations at the State Department. As multiple news outlets quickly pointed out, until 2005 Donilon helped oversee the aggressive lobbying operation of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Now, ABCNews.com has fleshed out the picture a bit, reporting that Donilon oversaw what it describes as a "backdoor lobbying campaign ... to undermine the credibility of a probe into the firm's accounting irregularities." The details, which center on a campaign to discredit an agency charged...

Mr. Donilon began as a young political operative for President Jimmy Carter and later was chief of staff for Secretary of State Warren Christopher in the Clinton administration. He has long operated in the area between politics and national security. He coached Mr. Obama on foreign policy for his debates in the 2008 presidential campaign.

For a long time, Donilon lived his life from presidential campaign to campaign. The Democratic operative worked on his first Democratic National Convention at 24, and he’s been helping elect candidates ever since. He has worked for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Joseph R. Biden.

Gen. James Jones is resigning as President Obama's national security adviser. Tom Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, will replace him, a senior administration official tells POLITICO. Jones's resignation will take effect in two weeks. Obama will make an announcement in the Rose Garden at 1 p.m. Friday

Nothing further yet. Just a one line headline from AP.

The only names being seriously considered to replace Emanuel are three men who are already on Obama’s team, according to officials: Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon; Ron Klain, an aide to Vice President Joe Biden, and Obama senior adviser Pete Rouse, who might be called upon to temporarily replace Emanuel until a permanent replacement is found.

Bob Woodward's searing critique of the Democrats' war strategy comes as key advisers are leaving and voters lose patience with Barack Obama's promise to deliver 'hope and change'. Alex Spillius reports on an increasingly isolated President. When Barack Obama took office 20 months ago – and what a long 20 months it seems – there was a lot of talk about the great "Team of Rivals" he was appointing around him. Parallels were drawn with the cabinet of substantial talents and big personalities assembled by Abraham Lincoln to rebuild the nation after the civil war. Now, in a new book,...

Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, is likely to leave the White House before the November congressional elections to run for mayor of Chicago, people familiar with the matter said. Emanuel, who would be running to replace Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, could depart by early October, after Congress leaves for recess to campaign for the midterm elections, the people said on condition of anonymity. One person close to Emanuel said a final decision hasn't been made. The timing of Emanuel's departure would allow him to devote full attention to the Chicago race while still giving the president...

Just a FOX NEWS ALERT right now. No story yet.

WASHINGTON - At a precarious moment in the war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama prepared to hear his top war commander explain biting published complaints about the commander in chief and his aides. Even before their showdown, the White House's rebuke of Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggested it would be hard for him to save his job. Ahead of his meeting with the president, McChrystal arrived at the Pentagon for meetings, including once scheduled with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. On his arrival, he denied to NBC News that he's offered his resignation. "Come on, you know better than that. No!"

The Obama administration is burnishing Barack Obama's image as intently focused on the plight of Haitians by pushing on the press a detailed-to-the-minute timeline of Obama's involvement with the response to the Haiti earthquake this week.This shameless promotion of Obama confirms what Rush Limbaugh said earlier this week--that Obama would use the earthquake for his political benefit.The release of the Haiti timeline is in stark contrast to the failure of the White House to similarly account for Obama's time in the aftermath of the Christmas Day terror attack on America while Obama was on vacation in Hawaii. Then, the administration...

It just gets more and more odd after my original report, with the latest coming from a German newspaper (translation courtesy of Google): Hit for the Zöllner: The contraband securities valued at 134 billion U.S. dollars are apparently real. Die italienische Finanzpolizei hatte zwei Japaner ertappt, die im doppelten Boden eines Koffers milliardenschwere Anleihen in die Schweiz schaffen wollten. The Italian financial police had two Japanese caught in the false bottom suitcase billion-dollar bonds in Switzerland wanted to create. Von dem Fund profitiert das hochverschuldete Italien. Note that this has received very little coverage in the so-called "mainstream US media"...

# Houston Chronicle: Alberto Gonzales # Fox News: Chace Crawford, Todd Palin, Matthew Modine, Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace. # National Music Publishers’ Assn.: Kara DioGuardi # Wall Street Journal: Jason Wu # BBC: Sir Howard Stringer, Kristi Yamaguchi, Ellen Burstyn, Phil Gordon # CNN: Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Val Kilmer, Kyra Sedgwick, Brad Cooper, Tyra Banks, Janet Napolitano # ABC News: David and Susan Axelrod; Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff; Peter Orszag, Director, Office of Management and Budget; Valerie Jarrett, senior presidential advisor; Jackie Norris, First Lady’s Chief of Staff;...

A transition adviser to President-elect Barack Obama earned millions of dollars overseeing an office that led a lobbying effort to prevent increased oversight of mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the company at the heart of the ongoing turmoil in the nation's financial markets, public records show. The unpaid adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, held several senior positions at Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005, including vice president of law and policy, at a time when the company's officers and lobbyists were insisting that now-troubled Fannie's finances were sound. In a 2006 report, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) said Fannie...