Two U.S. senators, two former Cabinet members, and a former ambassador to the United Nations received loans from Countrywide Financial through a little-known program that waived points, lender fees, and company borrowing rules for prominent people.
Senators Christopher Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut and chairman of the Banking Committee, and Kent Conrad, Democrat from North Dakota, chairman of the Budget Committee and a member of the Finance Committee, refinanced properties through Countrywide's "V.I.P." program in 2003 and 2004, according to company documents and emails and a former employee familiar with the loans.
Other participants in the V.I.P. program included 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. Jackson was deputy H.U.D. secretary in the Bush administration when he received the loans in 2003. Shalala, who received two loans in 2002, had by then left the Clinton administration for her current position as president of the University of Miami. She is scheduled to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 19.
More on Dodd and Obama connections at TheNextRight.com and Instapundit.
So... influential politicians get breaks on their mortgages from companies that they happen to regulate. Seems like everyone wins -- except the tax payers, who have to bail out the bankrupt mortgage holders. If Republican Senators did this, it would be evidence of greed and corruption. With Democrats, it's just a private matter among friends. Nothing to see here. Let's get back to doing the people's business of raising taxes on the rich people who don't even need mortgages!
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