Former CEO of Freddie Mac is a pub, had to return millions he thieved

http://www.reuters.com/article/bankingfinancial-SP/idUSN0642989720071107

http://www.nndb.com/people/222/000163730/

• Former CEO of Freddie Mac is a pub, had to return millions he thieved - sally
  • Yep...he was before Raines... - sam

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By Matthew Mosk
The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama will refund a small number of contributions made by Obama's aunt, who has been living in the United States illegally, according to a published report.

The woman, Zeituni Onyango, lives in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama's late father.

The Associated Press reported today that Obama's aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya.

Obama campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show Onyango gave $265 to the campaign. Foreign nationals are not permitted to donate to American presidential campaigns.

"Given the information that has been brought to our attention, the contributions are being refunded," Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, told The Washington Post this morning.

The campaign told the AP that Obama was not aware that questions had been raised about his aunt's legal status.

"Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed," the statement said, according to the AP.

"No knowledge of her status."  Why does that not surprise me?  A man who is so "family oriented" and has such a wonderful extended family with which he goes to Kenya to visit and strengthen his roots with, yet he has no clue as to what their "status" is. 

Freddie found itself in Justice Department crosshairs in 2003, after it finally admitted to years of accounting schemes to underreport its earnings...to the tune of $5 billion.  Freddie paid a $125 million fine to federal regulators, more than $400 million in shareholder lawsuit settlements, and $3.8 million in civil fines to settle Federal Election Commission charges of improper political fundraising.

Freddie's creative accounting was nothing compared to Fannie's.  As determined by two separate federal reports in 2004 and 2006, Fannie Mae out-and-out cooked the books so the bigwigs at the top could rake in millions in windfall profits.  The Washington Post reports that Fannie misstated its earnings by about $10.6 billion from 1998 through 2004.  all so fraudulent multimillion dollar bonuses could kick in for Fannhie's bigwigs.

Those Fannie Mae bigwigs who cashed in on the cooked books?  Chairman Franklin Raines, Bill Clinton's OMB director...A whopping $52 million.  Vice Chair Jamie Gorelick (remember her from the 9-11 Commission hearings), Clinton's deputy ATTORNEY GENERAL, $15 million.    Chairman and Chief Executive James A. Johnson, liberal lobbyist (the one who was kicked off Obama's VP vetting committee...looks like they should have vetted their committee) due to his role in the Countrywide financial scandal...$1.9 million.  Raines and the CFO of Fannie Mae were ousted.

Dems, loathe to clean up Fannie and Freddie houses even though Greenspan said preventitive action needed to be taken "sooner than later," came up with a "reform bill" in early 2005.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) mandated that Fannie and Freddie had to start handing out mortgages to "minority and moderate income buyers."  Whether these new customers were creditworthywas of little concern; Congress had race and bean-counting to achieve.  And now they basically owned half of the US housing market.

And now the American taxpayer is bailing out BOTH of these companies.

Is Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac the Democrat's Enron?  Sure looks like it to me.

And incidentally, Franklin Raines has been advising the Obama campaign on the mortgage and housing issues....ahem.

Maybe the international community wants their money back now.  Maybe that is why credit markets are frozen.  Since AIG and Fannie and Freddie are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, the world is lining up for their securitized mortgages to be repaid. 

Maybe this bailout is not to buy up bad debt, but to pay off bad debt the government has already bought, insured, and now needs to ask us money for to pay.  WE ARE BEING LIED TO AGAIN! 

Collapse or the Democrat Swindle of the U.S. Taxpayer

In 2006 an election year, the Democrats were still trying to lay the Enron scandal on Bush and the Republicans. With the help of the press a cover up of a larger financial scandal was taking place. A scandal that we are paying for today. In 2006 a 3 year investigation into fraud at Fannie Mae was concluded. It revealed a level of financial misconduct by Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and others that grossly overstated earnings by 10.6 Billion dollars. To gain bonuses.

 For those who don't know both Raines and Gorelick were high ranking officials in the Clinton Administration.

I hope you haven’t just eaten, because what you are about to read will disturb you–and well it should. It’s proof that John McCain foresaw the Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae disaster in 2006– and tried against all Obama-Like minds to ward it off.

Below are John McCain’s remarks urging the passage of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which he co-sponsored and which was rendered “Dead” in Congress.

Guess who prevailed and didn’t take heed? Or more appropriately, guess who deliberately “looked the other way”?

This is all we need to know to understand exactly WHICH candidate in this election is willing to break some eggs when it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–two organizations that, with the help of certain Democrats, deliberately redistributed wealth the easy way. Now we are all paying for it, as intended all along. Just as John McCain warned below.

As we view the carnage, this is all we need to know to understand exactly WHICH candidate foresaw this carnage we are witnessing,  and which candidate worked to convince the other candidate to help avoid it. It is all we need to know to recognize exactly WHICH candidate had the right judgment and was looking out for the rest of us.

Joe Biden? It’s time for US to be Patriotic? No. It’s time for YOU to be patriotic. In fact, it’s too late. As for you saying, “It’s time to be part of the deal”. We want no part of this “deal”. And what a “deal” it was!

May 26, 2006

Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.

The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

Quick Info

S-90 Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005

Last Action: Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.

Status: Dead

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190,to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

Update: Well looky here. Here’s a glowing Wall Street piece on Obama, written in June 2008. You would think Mr. “Regulator” Obama really is Jesus looking out for us! But…..here’s the paragraph that hooked me–the paragraph that haunts today:

He characterized the senator as a quick study on financial services, citing his early support of efforts by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank to empower the Federal Housing Administration to help struggling homeowners.

Oh they “empowered” all right. The Democrats killed this bill while Dodd, Frank and Obama fiddled and helped Fannie and Freddie cook their books, continue to tank, all the while keeping the regulators out of their way. These are the guys who killed the bill that McCain fought for. The bill that would have avoided the financial disaster we witnessed during the past two weeks. In the meantime, take a look at which senators were feeding at the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac trough. My party is not what it used to be. My party has not only let me down, but it has also screwed me and my country in the process.

Note:  All of these facts can be independently confirmed if you are interested in the truth of this matter.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6201900&page=1

are calling Obama and saying NO to his stimulus package.  I guess all his fearmongering didn't get to them!  Where are all those people who are so helpless that only Obama and his stooges can help them?   White House phone lines don't seem to correlate with his thoughts.  Interesting!   

You're right Obama, they didn't send you there to do the same thing OR to screw them over, both of which you are doing......over worse!

...slave wages overseas (you know, like MTSOs do.)

I don't understand why you condone corporate welfare/tax cheaters.  Not surprised -- just don't understand.

Next time you make some colossal blunder at work, here's your excuse:  "I was rushed".  Apparently, that's good enough for the feds, who have sent around 10,000 checks to dead people...some of whom were never even in the Social Security system.  Wonder where they're getting the names?

Of course, we knew that the fraud, abuse and waste would be gargantuan since the government has never been able to handle our money without fraud, waste and abuse.

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_money/consumer/090514_Dead_People_Get_Stimulus_Checks

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The NSA record collection program

It's the largest database ever assembled in the world, said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. In other words, Bush explained, one end of the communication must be outside the United States.

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

Don Weber, a senior spokesman for the NSA, declined to discuss the agency's operations. Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide, he said. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law.

The White House would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program. There is no domestic surveillance without court approval, said Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, referring to actual eavesdropping.

She added that all national intelligence activities undertaken by the federal government are lawful, necessary and required for the pursuit of al-Qaeda and affiliated terrorists. All government-sponsored intelligence activities are carefully reviewed and monitored, Perino said. She also noted that all appropriate members of Congress have been briefed on the intelligence efforts of the United States.

The government is collecting external data on domestic phone calls but is not intercepting internals, a term for the actual content of the communication, according to a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the program. This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for social network analysis, the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied together.

Carriers uniquely positioned

AT&T recently merged with SBC and kept the AT&T name. Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T are the nation's three biggest telecommunications companies; they provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers.

The three carriers control vast networks with the latest communications technologies. They provide an array of services: local and long-distance calling, wireless and high-speed broadband, including video. Their direct access to millions of homes and businesses has them uniquely positioned to help the government keep tabs on the calling habits of Americans.

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services — primarily long-distance and wireless — to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area.

Created by President Truman in 1952, during the Korean War, the NSA is charged with protecting the United States from foreign security threats. The agency was considered so secret that for years the government refused to even confirm its existence. Government insiders used to joke that NSA stood for No Such Agency.

In 1975, a congressional investigation revealed that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named Shamrock, led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping.

Enacted in 1978, FISA lays out procedures that the U.S. government must follow to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches of people believed to be engaged in espionage or international terrorism against the United States. A special court, which has 11 members, is responsible for adjudicating requests under FISA.

Over the years, NSA code-cracking techniques have continued to improve along with technology. The agency today is considered expert in the practice of data mining — sifting through reams of information in search of patterns. Data mining is just one of many tools NSA analysts and mathematicians use to crack codes and track international communications.

Paul Butler, a former U.S. prosecutor who specialized in terrorism crimes, said FISA approval generally isn't necessary for government data-mining operations. FISA does not prohibit the government from doing data mining, said Butler, now a partner with the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C.

The caveat, he said, is that personal identifiers — such as names, Social Security numbers and street addresses — can't be included as part of the search. That requires an additional level of probable cause, he said.

The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone-call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear. Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes.

The NSA's domestic program raises legal questions. Historically, AT&T and the regional phone companies have required law enforcement agencies to present a court order before they would even consider turning over a customer's calling data. Part of that owed to the personality of the old Bell Telephone System, out of which those companies grew.

Ma Bell's bedrock principle — protection of the customer — guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. No court order, no customer information — period. That's how it was for decades, he said.

The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.

The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of violation. In practice, that means a single violation could cover one customer or 1 million.

In the case of the NSA's international call-tracking program, Bush signed an executive order allowing the NSA to engage in eavesdropping without a warrant. The president and his representatives have since argued that an executive order was sufficient for the agency to proceed. Some civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, disagree.

Companies approached

The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the sources. Right around that time, they said, NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. The agency made an urgent pitch: National security is at risk, and we need your help to protect the country from attacks.

The agency told the companies that it wanted them to turn over their call-detail records, a complete listing of the calling histories of their millions of customers. In addition, the NSA wanted the carriers to provide updates, which would enable the agency to keep tabs on the nation's calling habits.

The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation. AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg.

With that, the NSA's domestic program began in earnest.

AT&T, when asked about the program, replied with a comment prepared for USA TODAY: We do not comment on matters of national security, except to say that we only assist law enforcement and government agencies charged with protecting national security in strict accordance with the law.

In another prepared comment, BellSouth said: BellSouth does not provide any confidential customer information to the NSA or any governmental agency without proper legal authority.

Verizon, the USA's No. 2 telecommunications company behind AT&T, gave this statement: We do not comment on national security matters, we act in full compliance with the law and we are committed to safeguarding our customers' privacy.

Qwest spokesman Robert Charlton said: We can't talk about this. It's a classified situation.

In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers.

Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: I wouldn't rule it out. His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.

Similarities in programs

The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.

One company differs

One major telecommunications company declined to participate in the program: Qwest.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as product in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them, one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

Contributing: John Diamond

That makes sense.