Fannie and Freddie's Friends
Will the Times Give Obama Equal Time?

Rick Davis' Fannie-Freddie Connection

Recently the New York Times reported that John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, received hundreds-of-thousands of dollars from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The report indicated that Fannie and Freddie were paying Davis' consulting firm $15,000 a month for nothing

Today, the McCain Campaign attacked the Times.  They claimed that the Times' story is "demonstrably false."  The statement, as might be expected, ontained a lot of spin.  But one bit was too much to pass over without comment:

Further, and missing from the Times' reporting, Mr. Davis has never -- never -- been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

The Times' article never said that Davis was a lobby for Fannie and Freddie.  Rather, the allegation was that his arrangement was more subtle:

Freddie Mac’s roughly $500,000 in payments to Davis & Manafort began immediately after Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in late 2005 disbanded an advocacy coalition that they had set up and hired Mr. Davis to run, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

From 2000 to the end of 2005, Mr. Davis had received nearly $2 million as president of the coalition, the Homeownership Alliance, which the companies created to help them oppose new regulations and protect their status as federally chartered companies with implicit government backing. That status let them borrow cheaply, helping to fuel rapid growth but also their increased purchases of the risky mortgage securities that were their downfall.

In other words, Fannie and Freddie paid Rick Davis a whole lot of money.  And he wasn't being paid because he was a nobody.  He was being paid because of his relationship with John McCain.

That might not technically be lobbying.  But it's still shady.  And it's not something that any of us should gloss over.

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