Debunking “3 Men who brought down Wall Street”

You’ve probably received a number of politically charged emails in the last fews days that purport to reveal questionable practices by one campaign or the other.  Today I got this email.  The highlights are as follows:


Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae.  Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae’s accounting activities.

Raines left with a “golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ .


Tim Howard –  Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard “was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a “stable pattern of earnings” at Fannie. In everyday English – he was cooking the books.  The Government Investigation determined that, “Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,”

Howard’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!


Jim Johnson –   A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as F annie Mae CEO.   Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.
Johnson’s Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?????


FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Advisor


TIM HOWARD?  Howard is also a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama


JIM JOHNSON?  Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama’s Vice Presidential Search Committee


IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS – HIS ADVISORS HAVE THE EXPERTISE – THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.   Would you trust the men who tore Wall Street down to build the New Wall Street ?

The best hoaxes are those that combine truths with lies to escape detection.  The description on the crimes of these men are essentially accurate, but their relationship to Obama is not.

Raines is NOT an Obama adviser, much less a “chief economic adviser.”  It was fabricated from an interview in which Raines said that he had talked to someone within the Obama campaign about general issues concerning the housing market.

No one has any evidence of Tim Howard being linked to Obama.  Apparently this was simply fabricated.  One article I saw that said Howard was linked to Obama used this WSJ article as proof.  Obama isn’t names in it.  They just assumed you wouldn’t click.

The final charge is true: Johnson did advise Obama but resigned once the Fannie Mae scandal hit the front pages.

Of course, McCain’s team has been conspiring with the Fannie Mae people as well.

Fannie and Freddie were massive institutions that lobbied heavily: financing Democrats and Republicans alike.  The collapse of these semi-governmental mortgage giants is a mar on the record of both parties and the political-economic-media establishment.   Obama and McCain were both culpable.

8 thoughts on “Debunking “3 Men who brought down Wall Street””

  1. The way I understand the actions by those who ran Fannie and Freddie traces back to a statement made by the Treasury department which simply stated that the U.S. Government would support Fannie and Freddie in the off case chance that they failed. With that said, these CEO’s and CFO’s were simply given immunity…diplomatic immunity. They could take a big fat shit in your house and nobody would touch them. Their impunity was remarkable but warranted.

  2. Hi Walther,

    I’m no fan of Frank & Tim, but was more than happy to update the above linked-to two-year-old Doom post with an invitation to visit the debunk at Snopes. Folks who (sometimes with justice) refer to their opponents as “Orwellian” should not result to a Big Lie campaign, and this sucker is one.

    By the way, I was (and am) a huge fan of Barry Goldwater, but tomorrow I’m voting Green. Funny world.

  3. John,

    You’re not alone. A number of us think that the next great American political movement is coming from tying the two ‘ends of the spectrum’ together: Green, Nader, Kucinich liberalism and Goldwater, Paul libertarianism. When those two sides integrate, we’ll have a grassroots pro-decentralization party to take on this dem-republican behemoth currently in power.

  4. The two party system died when John Adam left office in 1800. Since then great strides have been made: slavery ended, women were given equal rights, anti-trust laws were put in place but the two party system still stands. I would suspect before the two party system falls we’ll be on Mars.

  5. Not a senior advisor, no doubt. However, Raines is on record to admitting that Obama recently sought his council. It disgusts me that we are parsing words over how involved Raines is/was. We should be outraged that Obama has not pledged to go after the people that did bring down Wall Street. It is likely that Obama will win, and it is tragedy that those complicit in this crisis are advisors to Obama… to any degree.

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