Chairman Issa Issues Subpoena for All Countrywide VIP Docs
WASHINGTON. D.C. – In December of 2008, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), then the Committee’s Ranking Member, launched an investigation into Countrywide Financial Corporation’s infamous VIP and Friends of Angelo Program that exposed the inner workings of Countrywide’s efforts to buy friends in critical government and industry positions affecting the company’s business interests. Today, Chairman Issa issued a wide-ranging subpoena to Bank of America for all documents and records related to Countrywide’s VIP program.
“Countrywide orchestrated a deliberate and calculated effort to use relationships with people in high places in order to manipulate public policy and further their bottom line to the detriment of the American taxpayers even at the expense of its own lending standards,” said Issa. “This subpoena will allow us to obtain the information needed to answer the outstanding public interest questions regarding the full size and scope of the VIP program. The American people have a right to know the totality of who participated in the Countrywide’s VIP program and what they did in return for access to it. Our role is to get all of the facts so that the American people can judge for themselves who should be held responsible and accountable.”
The subpoena compels Bank of America to produce the following by noon on March 7, 2011:
- All documents, including emails, related to covered borrowers serviced by Countrywide Financial through the Branch 850 and/or VIP and/or Friends of Angelo program.
- All documents, including e-mails, transmitted by Countrywide officials notifying a covered borrower of membership in the VIP and/or Friends of Angelo program.
- All documents, including e-mails, transmitted between and among Countrywide officials discussing the purposes and goals of the VIP and/or Friends of Angelo program.
- Documents sufficient to show the number of persons enrolled in the VIP and/or Friends of Angelo program for each of calendar years 1996-2008, and the city and state of residence of such persons who were covered borrowers.
The term “covered borrowers” means at the time of the loan the borrower, or their spouse, was:
- A current or former officer or employee of a federal agency
- A current or former Member, officer, or employee of the U.S. Congress
- A current or former officer or employee of a government-sponsored enterprise
- A current or former officer or employee of a state or local government
SOURCE: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
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Countrywide Subpoena Could Make a Few Powerful People Nervous
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the new Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued his first subpoena: it’s in the investigation of the Countrywide scandal.
Details of the subpoena might make more than a few powerful people nervous. This is the first time anyone has sought records regarding all government officials who may have benefitted from the so-called “Friends of Angelo” and other VIP programs that Countrywide had. Congressional investigations have revealed Countrywide extended favorable terms to powerful shakers-and-movers in government in hopes of wielding influence.
In the past, when his party was a less-influential minority in the House, Issa pushed for a wide-ranging subpoena of Countrywide documents. But he was rebuffed by then-Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.). As CBS News previously reported in 2009, Towns was one of the VIP’s who received loans from Countrywide. Towns eventually agreed to issuing a subpoena, but it was much narrower than Issa requested, and did not include gathering information on public officials.
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This does not even touch other very visible elements of the collusion between government and CountryWide officials.
We have only to look at where the CA Attorney-General’s sister worked at the time then-AG Jerry Brown worked the ‘deal’ with CountryWide/BofA that led to the miserable piece of crap ‘CW AG Stipulated Settlement Agreement’. Dearest SISTER Kathleen Brown was a high-ranking CW employee and then continued on with BofA after the buy-out. Now she has moved over to Goldman-Sucks.
That TOOTHLESS settlement agreement was worked out to supposedly ‘right the wrong’ of the falsely advertised sub-prime mortgages. It supposedly offered stream-lined permanent mortgage modifications. Well, lots of them were sent out, lots were received back, and all of them were BREACHED by BofA. They used those permanent modification agreements to instead do a ‘set-up’ for foreclosure many months after the agreements were supposedly in place.
Now another round of the SAME crap has been added to that same basic plan under the agreements announce with the three honchos in CW. The paperwork had to have already been worked by Brown before leaving office as AG to return to the role of governor. I expect the same breaches to occur under the new round of the same ineffective program.
The AG’s office under Jerry would do NOTHING to enforce the agreement, nor to investigate breaches of modifications placed as a result of the initial agreement. Those modifications were handed out back in 2009 so there was plenty of time to investigate. Instead, even if an attorney approached the AG’s office, the AG’s office refused assistance.
Do you really believe that was only coincidence?