Clinton Official Reportedly Shortlisted to Run FBI Received $26 Million in Compensation from Fannie Mae Before Taxpayer Bailout
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
By Chris Neefus

jamie gorelick

Former Clinton Administration official Jamie Gorelick. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) –Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official that President Obama is reportedly considering to make the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was paid more than $26 million in total compensation while she was a top executive at Fannie Mae -- before taxpayers had to bail out the mortgage giant.

Gorelick, who left the Clinton Justice Department in 1997 to work for Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, was paid $26,466,834 in salary, bonuses, performance pay and stock options from 1998 to 2003, according to the Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae (2006), conducted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Gorelick served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise began bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997.

Raines had served as Clinton's budget director before assuming the top post at Fannie Mae.

In 2001, Gorelick announced that Fannie was buying subprime loans encouraged by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and bundling them as securitized financial instruments -- the same securities that ultimately plagued the balance sheets of financial institutions such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers once the housing market suffered a downward correction in 2008.

“Fannie Mae will buy CRA loans from lenders' portfolios; we'll package them into securities; we'll purchase CRA mortgages at the point of origination; and we'll create customized CRA-targeted securities,â€