Thread: Obama's Candidate for FBI post has history in scandals

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL

Candidate for FBI post has history in scandals

Gorelick's resume includes undermining anti-terror effort, aiding mortgage meltdown

Posted: March 24, 2011
9:35 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2011 WorldNetDaily


Jamie Gorelick

There are reports that President Obama is considering former Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick as a possible candidate to be the next chief of the FBI, and critics are erupting with horror at the idea of a person in that position who, as one alleged, "helped to bring us 9/11 and the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

The Wall Street Journal and Fox Nation have reported that Gorelick is on the short list of candidates to take over the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

But if the White House seriously is considering such an appointment, surely discussed as part of the vetting process will be her controversial role as a deputy attorney general under Clinton in not preventing the 9/11 tragedy as well as her role under Clinton as a vice chair at Fannie Mae when the mortgage giant developed catastrophic problems.

Lucrative history at Fannie Mae

In the aftermath of the U.S. government takeover of Fannie and Freddie, attention focused on three prominent Democrats who served as Fannie Mae executives: Franklin D. Raines, former Clinton administration budget director; James Johnson, former aide to Democratic vice president Walter Mondale; and Gorelick.

All three earned millions in compensation while serving as top Fannie Mae executives.

Raines earned $90 million in his five years as Fannie Mae CEO, from 1999 to 2004;

Johnson earned $21 million in just his last year serving as Fannie Mae CEO from 1991 to 1998; and

Gorelick earned an estimated $26 million serving as vice chair of Fannie Mae from May 1997 to May 2003, according to a May 2006 Special Examination of Fannie Mae conducted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. http://www.fanniemae.com/media/pdf/news ... ALEXAM.pdf

All three subsequently were involved in mortgage-related financial scandals concerning their stewardship at Fannie Mae.

In 1998, as Fannie Mae vice chairman, Gorelick received a bonus of $779,625, despite her alleged involvement in a scandal in which Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions in order to manipulate Fannie Mae books to meet 1998 earning targets. The manipulations allegedly triggered multi-million dollar bonuses for top executives, including Gorelick.

The 1998 bonus reported for then-Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO James Johnson was $1.932 million and for then-chairman designate Franklin Raines was $1.11 million.

In 2001, Gorelick bragged to Business Wire that Fannie Mae had passed in the second quarter of 2001, a year-and-a-half ahead of schedule, its acquisition target to purchase $10 billion of sub-prime mortgage loans under the terms of the Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977 during Jimmy Carter's administration. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _74223918/

"Our approach to lenders is 'CRA Your Way,'" Gorelick explained to Business Wire. "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."

Business Wire noted that through its "American Dream Commitment," Fannie Mae under Gorelick's management pledged to transact before 2010 more than $20 billion in specially targeted CRA business and to finance over $500 billion in CRA business altogether.

Over the course of the past decade, an estimated one-third of loans financed by Fannie Mae were specified to meet Fannie Mae's CRA business goal.

In remarks to the American Bankers Association's National Community and Economic Development Conference in Chicago on Oct. 30, 2000, Gorelick said, "We will take CRA loans off your hands – we will buy them from your portfolios, or package them into securities – so you have fresh cash to make more CRA loans." http://c0181567.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspa ... emarks.pdf

The Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 25, 2008, that Gorelick, while yet an executive at Fannie Mae, received from Countrywide Financial Corp. a favor from Countrywide's then-CEO Angelo Mozilo, a "friend of Angelo" refinancing. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1222306 ... s_page_one The favor, in 2003, reportedly was favorable interest for a 10-year, 5 percent fixed-rate deal on a $960,149 mortgage owned by Gorelick.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Gorelick said she had no knowledge of receiving special treatment.

Still, the Wall Street Journal reported Gorelick's mortgage was handled through the Countrywide's VIP lending department in California, and the staff there was aware of her position as a senior Fannie Mae executive, according to statements Robert Feinberg, a former Countrywide employee, made to the newspaper.

Feinberg claimed that the average market rate for mortgage loans of the type obtained by Gorelick at the time were around 6 percent. Gorelick's preferred terms allowed her to save thousands of dollars over the life of the loan. At that time, Fannie Mae had in place a company policy that required full disclosure of potential conflicts of interests and prohibited the acceptance by Fannie Mae officers of substantial loans with preferential terms from an organization seeking to do business with Fannie Mae, without prior review and approval by Fannie Mae.

In 2003, Countrywide was the nation's biggest mortgage firm and the largest supplier of mortgage securities to Fannie Mae under an exclusive "strategic agreement" reached by the two firms in July 1999, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

Under the 1999 deal, Countrywide agreed to deliver a large portion of Fannie Mae's annual loan volume in exchange for special financing terms.

Role in not preventing 9/11

Also, from 1994 to 1997, while serving in the Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general, Gorelick wrote a 1995 memo creating what in time became known as the "Gorelick Wall." http://www.scribd.com/doc/51459073/gorlickall

Basically, the Gorelick memo set in stone the Clinton-era doctrine that terrorism was to be regarded as a criminal justice problem. That meant information developed by intelligence agencies was not to be shared with criminal investigative units, including the Department of Justice, largely because the regulations under which intelligence agencies operate did not necessarily protect the civil rights of criminal suspects under U.S. law.

Gorelick's role in writing the memo was not generally known until she was appointed by then-Senate Democratic Party minority leader Tom Daschle to serve as a commissioner on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission.

Her participation as commissioner became controversial when then-Attorney General John Aschroft in his testimony to the 9/11 Commission declassified and brought to light the 1995 Department of Justice memorandum authored by Gorelick.

Appearing before the 9/11 Commission, Ashcroft testified, "Although you understand the debilitating impact of the wall, I cannot imagine that the commission knew about this memorandum, so I have declassified it for you and the public to review. Full disclosure compels me to inform you that its author is a member of this commission."

Since Ashroft's disclosure, controversy has swirled over the possibility that had intelligence and law enforcement agencies fully shared information about prospective terrorists attacks, 9/11 might have been prevented.

Specifically, critics have argued that in the days before 9/11, the "Gorelick Wall" prevented FBI officials in Minnesota from getting a search warrant to search the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, the reputed "20th hijacker." Moussaoui was placed in custody on Aug. 16, 2001, by the FBI and INS agents and charged with an immigration violation after suspicions were raised concerning Moussaoui's intentions in pursuing flight training.

WND columnist Jack Cashill also has outlined a series of possible links between Gorelick and actions regarding the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and the TWA 800 disaster investigation. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=200741

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=279153

Get real

Everyone he has appointed or try to appoint has a history of being in trouble , is a communist socialist , or is downright anti American

Hilda Solis ..... raving reconquista
Sonia Sodamayor,,,,, la raza
Janet Mugwjhy ,,,, la raza
I can think of dozens of others

Originally Posted by Justthefacts

Everyone he has appointed or try to appoint has a history of being in trouble , is a communist socialist , or is downright anti American.

"You think maybe he wants her in so she can stop any investigations that might get him and his home team in some trouble?"