Rahm’s ill-gotten gains
So, when’s the ACORN/MSM-chartered bus to Rahm’s (illegal) apartment departing to protest his ill-gotten gains?
Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.
One of those allegedly asleep-at-the-switch board members was Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel—now chief of staff to President Barack Obama—who made at least $320,000 for a 14-month stint at Freddie Mac that required little effort.
As gatekeeper to Obama, Emanuel now plays a critical role in addressing the nation’s mortgage woes and fulfilling the administration’s pledge to impose responsibility on the financial world.
Emanuel’s Freddie Mac involvement has been a prominent point on his political résumé, and his healthy payday from the firm has been no secret either. What is less known, however, is how little he apparently did for his money and how he benefited from the kind of cozy ties between Washington and Wall Street that have fueled the nation’s current economic mess.
Though just 49, Emanuel is a veteran Democratic strategist and fundraiser who served three terms in the U.S. House after helping elect Mayor Richard Daley and former President Bill Clinton. The Freddie Mac money was a small piece of the $16 million he made in a three-year interlude as an investment banker a decade ago…
…During his brief time on the board, the company hatched a plan to enhance its political muscle. That scheme, also reviewed by the board, led to a record $3.8 million fine from the Federal Election Commission for illegally using corporate resources to host fundraisers for politicians. Emanuel was the beneficiary of one of those parties after he left the board and ran in 2002 for a seat in Congress from the North Side of Chicago.
The board was throttled for its acquiescence to the accounting manipulation in a 2003 report by Armando Falcon Jr., head of a federal oversight agency for Freddie Mac. The scandal forced Freddie Mac to restate $5 billion in earnings and pay $585 million in fines and legal settlements. It also foreshadowed even harder times at the firm.
Many of those same risky investment practices tied to the accounting scandal eventually brought the firm to the brink of insolvency and led to its seizure last year by the Bush administration, which pledged to inject up to $100 billion in new capital to keep the firm afloat. The Obama administration has doubled that commitment.
Freddie Mac reported recently that it lost $50 billion in 2008. It so far has tapped $14 billion of the government’s guarantee and said it soon will need an additional $30 billion to keep operating.
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Trackbacks
- Rahm Emanuel made hundreds of thousands at AIG stint | The American Pundit
- Rahm Emanuel made hundreds of thousands at AIG stint | The American Pundit
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- Abortionist Family Dies - The Untold Story of the Montana Plane Crash « Jim Blazsik
- Rahm Emanuel Made a Pile off Freddie’s Fannie | Citizen-Right
- Geithner Seeks More Power to Ruin Our Economy | OpenMarket.org
- Rahm Emanuel’s Freddie Mac Payoff | Democrat = Socialist
- Michelle hearts Rahm « Hannibal Lectern
- What do Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel have in common?
- Video: Rahm Emmanuel received $300,000 from Freddie Mac | Mofo Politics | Hoping Obama fails
- Obama, Tell Me Lies… Tell Me Sweet Little Lies « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- BizzyBlog » Lucid Links (041409)
- Amy Rule Emanuel is Rahm Emanuels Wife » Right Pundits
- Is That How You Talk To Your Mother? Emanuel and Obama Want To Repeal The Second Amendment And Take American People’s Guns Used To Defend Their Homes and Family? The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award Goes To Emanuel and Obama! « Pronk Palisad
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Only $320,000? That’s called slumming!
Michelle, you better check your six a little more often at the rate things are going with this administration.
Who knows…they may send a bus to your house for questioning things.
But, but I thought all the ties with Wall Street were through Repubs.??
Emanuel is as crooked as Chicago politics, from which he sprang in ballerina shoes.
That’s the brilliant trick socialists have been able to pull off.
Read Ann Coulter’s latest column.
AKA do to the rest of us what he did to fannie and freddy.
Politicians are high-priced prostitutes? Crazy. We have lost our way.
heh heh, granite. I did first thing this morning…
Also in the article:
That’s similar to Enron, Worldcom, and Satyam scandals. Can you imagine the media letting Bush get away w/ appointing an Enron director as Chief of Staff?
If you knew the common usage of ‘fanny’ overseas, you would realize that it makes it doubly fitting.
I know this is a rhetorical question, but why isn’t he in jail?
As Wighttrash and Granite have alluded, only if he were a Republican. Dang these CPBs* have learned to game the system.
* Commie Pinko Bastards
Are you telling us the S&M Fairy of Chicago is a crook? Check that next FedEX package–it may be a dead fish.
But compared to Robert Rubin of Citigroup ol’ dead fish is a piker.
If I offended anyone calling Rahm Emmanuel the S&M Fairy of Chicago an S&M Fairy of Chicago: stop doing that.
Yep.
As (paraphrase?) the wonderful Sig Ruman (Nazi colonel) says about a ham actor to the “disguised” ham actor himself (Jack Benny) in 1942’s To Be or Not to Be: “What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland.”
I saw the “Short” bus over at Rahm’s house just the other day.
It’s the Obama MAFIA.
We thought Clinton had connections? Scarface Capone had his enemies and rivals in Chicago but Obama has collected and gathered every thug and criminal possible for the last 25 years and hired them to work as ONE.
Where is Rezko? Blago? SEIU? Auchi?
What has America done to itself?
We need Tea Parties THEN we need HANDCUFF parties.
who says there is no money in “public service”. every time i look at drudge or read michelle another underpaid public employee is walking away with a grand slam bonus. maybe bawney should start looking a little closer to home than aig and wall street. but then again, what happens in washington dc stays in washington dc.
Rahm is too critical to the economic recovery to have his actions questioned.
Without him and Timmy sulphur will rain down on us and the seas will boil.
Thus, it is written; thus it is said,
TOTUS, The Infallible
Not to worry, Keith Olbermann will set us all straight with a clear, objective recitation of the facts.
Unfortunately, he won’t be “doing a Grassley” afterwords (vis-a-vis the senator’s suggestion to AIG money handlers).
Surely he made more than $320,000 in 14 months. The rest of it must have gone through different channels (under the table) like the rest of the Chicago criminals.
No doubt the mid-stream media buffoons and puppets are going to erupt in outrage…
The list of dem operatives that skimmed boatloads of cash (read as party reward $$) from fannie and fredie mac is extensive. The list reads as a who’s who of liberal left lifetime pols that have all now arrived with Obama in the new administration. Emmanuel is the tip of the iceberg folks. Add to that the list of facilitators in congress that created the whole thing and planted all the insiders on the boards in in key lucrative positions, namely Dodd and Frank to name a few, well, one could certainly write a best selling book documenting the entire thing.
Wow. Just wow.
And people had $%^t to say about Karl Rove. This guy here (Emanuel) is 10 x’s the bastard that Rove was ever even alleged to be. He’s the type of guy that if he actually got tossed under the bus… literally… people would just shrug and not really care.
But Bush………………..
Just in case someone is in class this am.
Not only that trick…but socialists have carefully developed and nurtured projection, and perfected it into an art form:
Can’t help but see “religious overtones” (at the moment, cannot think of the most descriptive term[s]) to what we are discussing here:
The socialists have striven mightily, and to a great degree succeeded, in convincing large chunks of the voting public that they do not exist…hmmm, about whom is it said that his greatest trick is convincing people he does not exist?
And, it would be funny, if it were not so outrageous and dangerous, how socialists so often accuse others of doing exactly what they themselves are doing; and thus confuse and diffuse the original issue…sort of like screaming of the mote in the other’s eye, while ignoring (actually, distracting attention from) the beam in their own.
Just interesting….
I just bought me one of them new solar-powered Obamatrons at GuvMart the other day (using my free Dept of Socialist Insecurity acquisition-voucher, of course); and boy, are these things fantastic!
I don’t have to do anything anymore; just sit back and wait for other chumps to do all my work for me.
Geese, this is great! I wonder how long this thing lasts????
Say, where’s the warranty….?
http://monicamemo.typepad.com/weblog/2009/03/strange-but-true.html
Still wondering when the conservative movement is going to shift from internet BSing to actually taking action to retrieve whats left of the United States from these people(I use the term loosely)
Bradley – Now I won’t be able to get the image of Rham in balarina shoes and a tu tu out of my head the rest of the day — thanks alot!
Has anyone else seen the 1992 Eddie Murphy comedy “The Distinguished Gentleman”? Murphy plays a character named “Thomas Jefferson Johnson” The film starts out Murphy’s character as an everyday, small time con artist who hits on the idea of running for office for the money. Through a few machinations, he is actually elected to Congress.
The whole crooked world of lobbying, their money and favor trading is exposed. This movie would be A LOT funnier if it wasn’t so close to how things likely run in Washington.
Murphy’s character sees the light by the end of the movie. We can only hope for such a pollyanna outcome from our CIC (Crook-In-Chief) and his thugocracy.
Dear Marilyn,
This is just a suggestion: Review your tax returns for the past 7 years with an accountant who specializes in taxes and an attorney who specializes in tax law. Since Da One has recycled as many Clintonistas as possible, he may recycle their MOs as well.
Hope is not a plan; not all change is good. IndyMedia is full of fascists. The only civilian national security force we need is defined in Title 10, Chapter 13, USC. The resistance is here; the resistance is now. RESIST!!!!!!!
ECS
The Obama Regime is taking these charges very seriously. Rahm Emmanuel has already convened an emergency meeting to gin up a faux outrage to distract the public from this.
$16 million in 3 years as an investment banker? And now Obama wants to regulate compensation for executives at institutions that aren’t even getting bailout money? If he does that, can we retroactively tax Rahm for his obscene profits that were surely obtained at someone else’s expense.
And for the record I think the pic at the top ought to be the one from the Inauguration where he’s sticking his tongue out. JMHO
Criminals, idiots, incompetents – just another day in DC. Et tutu Rahm?
The President will let you know what he thinks as soon as he reads it on his teleprompter.
So may we assume the 90% tax on non-performing execs in government backed corporations is retroactive? Heh. Never mind.
Ew. Rahm from his leotard days.
Thubg like Emanuel will meet with retribution soon. And it will be Obama’s downfall. Stay tuned
John 18:14
et tutu rahm, lol. the chicago way.
Blah, blah, blah.
Does anyone here really think anything will come of this?
I was ready to express my outrage as well, and then I thought, “Why bother?”
Twinkle-Toes will not be subjected to any real scrutiny. Dear Leader will assure us T-T is as pure as the driven snow and the MSM will let it go. It’s just so much BS.
We’re just gonna have to fight this Marxist administration in the trenches.
Gut the hog. Gut it quick. Gut it now.
Interesting (and here rather ironic) that in Old Testament Hebrew, Emmanuel means “God [is] with us”.
God help us.
Michelle, Someone of your stature needs to write an editorial about George Soros’ huge profit betting against the Presidency he helped install. If this isn’t the height of hypocrisy, I don’t know what is!!!!!! Poor Warren B.has lost a bundle betting on his guy, Obama. While everyone else is losing, Soros is raking it in by taking advantage of the destruction of our capitalistic society. What a weasel!!!!
He feels Pretty
So Pretty
So Pretty, Witty and Wise
Can you imagine Twinkle-Toes going to prison with THAT photo floating around?
Sell tickets-put it on the internet, pay for view!
Like I said some weeks ago…who knew he had been on the TV show “Fame” before he slithered his way into politics?
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
And they are, aptly, pigs.
Those Cabinet meetings must be interesting when Obama tells Rahm to stay “en pointe”…
I haven’t had a chance to read the other comments yet, so forgive me if this is repetitive. Have you folks been watching Glenn Beck? He has been tying so many things together! Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Soros, Unions, ACORN, voter fraud, Fannie and Freddie, Dodd, Rangel, Pelosi, spouses of congressmen and congress women, on and on and on! There are way too many intertwining pieces of this puzzle to be coincidence. Add in the secrecy of Obama’s past, including his birth certificate and his unwillingness to release college information, plus…no past associates or girlfriends have come forward. This is most certainly a FRAUDULENT take-over of our government and our country. We need a huge wall chart connecting Obama and his henchmen/women and see what it looks like. It won’t be pretty.
Hope & Change!
Hope for some change….
Rule .308 applies.
Bet ol’ Rahm is going to be in seclusion again until this blows over. Can’t find a thing on this in the St Louis Post Dispatch.
Does anyone remember Jamie Gorelick? She was the one who installed the Gorelick wall between the FBI and the CIA so they could not share intel. After her stint in the Justice department, she went to FM/FM and made in excess of $20 million to help run them into the ground.
Rahm is a piker.