- U.S. Representatives and senators, their staffs and officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got thouisands of discounted loans while Countrywide Mortgage ran a VIP program for borrowers with possible influence or information the company wanted, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says.
- The committee says the VIP program ran from January 1996 to June 2008 for officials after starting in 1991 for Countrywide executives and their friends. Logs showed 17,979 loans, but duplications make it unclear how many people benefited or if all are listed.
- Bank of America, which bought Countrywide, turned over more than 120,000 pages of paperwork under subpoena.
From the article:
The Countrywide VIP Program wrote nearly 18,000 sweetheart mortgages to congressmen and policymakers at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other federal agencies, according to a report released Thursday by the government oversight committee.
