Countrywide issued hundreds of VIP loans to buy influence, report says

… The three-year investigation, which was led by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, revealed the extent to which Countrywide was offering discounted loans and other perks to Congress members and other officials in order to benefit its business interests.

Countrywide, which Bank of America purchased in 2008, specialized in subprime loans, the risky mortgage products that began to record exceptionally high default rates in 2007 ushering in a wave of foreclosures. Richard Simon, a Bank of America spokesman, said he wouldn't comment on the report's findings. However, he did note that Bank of America discontinued Countrywide's VIP program at the time of the acquisition.

… The report said that Countrywide tried to use its influence on Capitol Hill to bolster support for Fannie Mae, with which it had established a special relationship.  Fannie gave volume discounts on fees to Countrywide in exchange for the right to buy most of the mortgage loans it originated. Many of the risky loans defaulted, however, which generated billions of dollars in losses for Fannie.
"Other than Countrywide, no other entity's employees received more VIP loans than Fannie Mae," Issa said in a release. "These relationships helped Mozilo increase his own company's profits while dumping the risk of bad loans on taxpayers."

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/05/real_estate/countrywide-mortgage/

Ironically you posted this as I'm going through anti-corruption training (twice, they must be telling me something!).  Seems like the training would be more applicable to Fannie Mae and members of Congress!

Originally Posted By Joram (6 JUL 2012 6:11am)

Ironically you posted this as I'm going through anti-corruption training (twice, they must be telling me something!).  Seems like the training would be more applicable to Fannie Mae and members of Congress!

This is off topic but I wanted to say that I agree with you on your observation concerning Chief Justice Roberts' possible motivation in his Obamacare ruling.  I too believed he went out of his way to purposely screw Obama by reinvigorating grass root opposition to the law by upholding the individual mandate, and pouring salt in an already open wound by labeling it a tax.  Moral is: be careful what you ask for; you might just get it.

We may never know for certain his true motivation but we will see in a few months if it really made a difference.