It looks like our Congressmen just love being friends with benefits.
This past week, four more politicians were named as participants in the “Friends of Angelo” mortgage scandal: Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Howard McKeon (R-CA), Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Pete Sessions (R-TX). They join a long list of representatives, including Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND), who are believed to have received special discounted loans from Countrywide’s felonious CEO Angelo Mozilo.
The investigation into the “Friends of Angelo” program started three years ago, when Mozilo was convicted of defrauding his shareholders to the tune of $67.5 million. When the SEC discovered that a few politicians were named on the list of people that received “VIP” benefits and rates on their mortgages, Congress launched a full investigation. Spearheaded by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the investigation revealed that a whole lot of politicians had received these “sweetheart deals” in addition to large contributions to their political campaigns.
Though accepting these deals isn’t technically illegal, it goes against the ethics code of the House and Senate – ‘cause, you know, bribery is frowned upon. What’s interesting about this new batch of unscrupulous Congressmen, though, is that Issa’s actions are now being called into question as well.
Elijah Cummings
However, things have changed since then. The Congressmen recently identified on the “Friends of Angelo” list mostly belong to the Republican Party, and Issa has been reluctant to name names. He’s been ordering his staffers to let him view all their findings before they go public, which is not the way investigations are traditionally handled. In fact, the last four names weren’t even disclosed by Issa’s investigation at all. They were leaked by another source in Congress.
The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings (D-MD), now believes that Issa’s shyness is a deliberate attempt to protect members of his own party and has written him a public letter saying as much. In it, Cummings tells Issa that “These sudden shifts raise key questions about how you plan to proceed with this investigation.” He wonders why the investigative committee hasn’t held a public hearing on the new names, and he questions whether Issa intended to disclose them to Congress at all.
That’s a signal that things have gotten serious. With this new accusation, the “Friends of Angelo” scandal has evolved into an outright political firestorm. If it turns out that the Republicans have been illegally protecting their own hides during this scandal, we could be about to see a serious shakeup in Congress. Control of the House could shift. Key figures in separate investigations could be forced to resign.
All because of a few percentage points off a mortgage interest rate.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
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