House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s first subpoena takes aim at Countrywide Financial’s VIP program, launching a probe that seeks to out lawmakers who got sweetheart terms on home loans. The California Republican issued an unusually wide-ranging subpoena for documents about the defunct lender’s program, demanding names, addresses and e-mail exchanges of all those involved, a major expansion of an inquiry launched in the preceding Congress.
In the 111th Congress, then-Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) limited his inquiry into the Friends of Angelo Program — named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo — to government officials, regulators and their aides. This time, the broad request could also net private individuals mentioned in internal Countrywide e-mail traffic. The chairman, primarily, wants information on borrowers who were 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; or a current or former officer or employee of a state and local government.”
Issa said in a statement that the American people “have a right to know the totality of who participated in the Countrywide VIP program and what they did in return for access to it.” He said it is Congress’s role to “get all of the facts so that the American people can judge for themselves who should be held responsible and accountable. “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,” Issa said.
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