Culture of Corruption update: Dodd, Conrad and sweetheart deals
They can run, but they can’t hide:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation’s largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony.
Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn’t know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment.
Dodd got two Countrywide mortgages in 2003, refinancing his home in Connecticut and another residence in Washington. Conrad’s two Countrywide mortgages in 2004 were for a beach house in Delaware and an eight-unit apartment building in Bismarck in his home state of North Dakota.
Robert Feinberg, who worked in the Countrywide’s VIP section, told congressional investigators last month that the two senators were made aware that “who you know is basically how you’re coming in here.”
“You don’t say ‘no’ to the VIP,” Feinberg told Republican investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, according to a transcript obtained by The Associated Press.
Malkin remarks:
The last chapter of Culture of Corruption highlights President Obama’s embrace of corruptocrat Chris Dodd as a shining symbol of the Hope and Change farce. He endorsed Dodd’s 2010 re-election bid earlier this year by praising the Connecticut Democrat’s “extraordinary record of accomplishment.”
But Dodd’s career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington’s culture of corruption. It’s a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, entrenched incumbency, and hypocrisy.
Yep.
Expect Dodd’s poll numbers to continue to sink. Conrad, if I remember correctly, won’t be up for re-election until 2012, and North Dakota Republicans haven’t come close to beating him yet. Plus – by 2012 most of this will probably already be forgotten, so he’ll probably be safe.
Stay tuned.
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