NEW NAT SEC ADVISER LINKED TO DISCREDITING FANNIE MAE PROBE
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/13/obama-choice-helped-fannie-block-oversight/
Obama choice helped Fannie block oversight
National security adviser tied to discrediting of probe
Years before Fannie Mae foundered amid a massive accounting scandal, President Obama’s choice for national security adviser oversaw an office inside the mortgage giant that orchestrated a negative publicity blitz to fight attempts by Congress to increase government oversight, records show.
Thomas E. Donilon, who won the job as national security adviser this month, worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005 at a time the company’s officials insisted finances were sound. He also earned more than $1.8 million in bonuses before the government took over the troubled company in the wake of an accounting scandal.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Mr. Obama, who railed against lobbyists on the campaign trail, hailed Mr. Donilon’s appointment last week, but made no mention of his time as a registered lobbyist.
Mr. Donilon’s work came under scrutiny in a 2006 report by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which found that Fannie Mae lobbyists – working in an office overseen by Mr. Donilon – parlayed their ties to members of Congress to try to discredit federal regulators looking into the finances of the company.
“Thus, Fannie Mae succeeded in creating a large volume of negative publicity about the OFHEO examination report, in an effort to distract attention from its multibillion-dollar accounting errors,” the OFHEO report concluded.
In addition, the report noted that the publicity campaign, which included leaking nonpublic information, was conceived and executed by Fannie Mae’s government and industry relations department, but was still “well known” to Mr. Donilon and other senior executives.
Mr. Donilon was never accused of being complicit in accounting irregularities that prompted federal regulators to seek more than $100 million paid out to Fannie Mae’s former chairman and chief executive, Franklin D. Raines, along with two other executives.
Still, Mr. Donilon was sued in federal court and later dropped from a pair of shareholder lawsuits filed by retirement plans that accused Fannie Mae executives of earning millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and stock compensation based on improper financial results.
The Washington Times reported on Mr. Donilon’s ties to Fannie Mae in 2008, when he was named as an adviser to Mr. Obama’s presidential transition team.
At the time, Obama aides noted that as a former official at the State Department, Mr. Donilon was providing valuable input in foreign-affairs issues, but added that he would have no say in housing matters, given his previous work at Fannie Mae.
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