Real Estate Investing:Countrywide Mortgages Friends Of Angelo Program Investigation Stalled
Article Summary:
Article Content:
What happens when you give special deals to politician?
You tend to get away with it.
That is the lesson that the investigation into the Friends of Angelo program that Countrywide and Angelo Mozilo offered influential politicians to get below market loans. They got cheap mortgages, he got an ear to listen to how regulations were written. And we all saw how that turned out…
Now the secondary payoff is coming. Instead of investigating the bribery that occurred, we are getting the whitewash in Congress. Hey if you don’t investigate the crime no one can get into trouble. Right?
Mr. Issa said he understands there is some resistance within the committee to issuing a subpoena, but he still hopes one will go out.
The Friends of Angelo program has proved embarrassing for some loan recipients, whose ranks included two U.S. senators, Democrat Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Both men, subjects of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation, have denied wrongdoing and said they didn’t do any favors to Countrywide.
Mr. Dodd has said his mortgage was at a market rate. Both senators, who also have said they weren’t aware of receiving special treatment, are cooperating with the ethics probe. The ethics committee didn’t return a call for comment.
Mr. Issa says investigations have shown that loans also went to influential Republicans. “This is a bipartisan problem,” he says.