The CRA—The 2007 Collapse—and Lawyer Jamie Gorelick

Sources: Washington Post, Washington Examiner, blogs and forums:

The disclosure that Jamie Gorelick, a member of the September 11 commission, was personally responsible for instituting a key obstacle to cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence operations before the terrorist attacks raises disturbing questions about the integrity of the commission itself. Ms. Gorelick should not be cross-examining witnesses; instead, she should be required to testify about her own behavior under oath. Specifically, commission members need to ask her about a 1995 directive she wrote that made it more difficult for the FBI to locate two of the September 11 hijackers who had already entered the country by the summer of 2001.

Back in the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration came into power. With end of the Cold War, it was pretty obvious that low-level intensity conflicts and Terrorism would be the dominant security threat to the United States. As the United States battled terrorism, the liberals who came into power wanted to limit further the capabilities of the CIA, because as everyone knows, the CIA is biggest force for evil in the world (sarcasm there).

Anyway, there was a Deputy Attorney General who wrote a memo that set a higher standard than the law even set in keeping FBI criminal investigations for terrorism and counter-terrorism information separated. This memo erected an even higher wall, and made it even more difficult for intelligence information about terrorists to be used and disseminated in protecting the Citizens of the United States.

Also during this time frame, the Clinton Administration, led by the Janice Reno Justice Department, began to investigate lenders who were not meeting the “aims” of the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act) This investigation, and threat of investigation, led to Fannie Mae beginning the dangerous lending practices that eventually led government officials to bankrupt this country over STUPID loans made by these lending institutions. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage lending institutions, basically defrauded and lied their way into insolvency starting in the late 1990s.

Fast forward 6-8 years.

After the 9/11 attacks, the President established the 9/11 Commission to investigate how this terrible attack and lapse in intelligence was allowed to happen. Of course, Washington DC being Washington DC, the Democrats had to make sure it was a “bi-partisan” commission. So it shouldn’t be any great shock that when the commission was grilling Attorney General John Ashcroft about how difficult it was for intelligence information to flow freely from agency to agency, there was a Democrat on the Commission grilling him about the Bush Administration’s failure to get intelligence information passed from agency to agency. However, it DID come as a shock to the public when Ashcroft declassified a document revealing that that the person grilling him was none other than the former Deputy Attorney General who wrote the infamous ”wall memo”. The person grilling Ashcroft was former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick.

So, when it was said and done, the Clinton Administration and the Democrats had placed the ultimate insider on the 9/11 Commission to insure that the blame would not be deflected back on them. That, my friends, is a political fix of the worst kind.

Move forward to 2008.

After the debt crisis and with our economy tanking, carrying much of the world economy with it, investigations began as to why this happened. One of the revelations was that Fannie Mae had misreported earnings, and executives had earned millions in bonuses by participating in excessive and risky lending practices, practices which were at the heart of the housing bubble collapse.

In all of this, the Washington Post reported “Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a “manipulation” that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives, a federal regulator said yesterday….. Fannie Mae reported paying the following executive bonuses in 1998: chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines, chairman-designate, received $1.11 million; Chief Operating Officer Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard received $493,750; and Robert J. Levin, an executive vice president, received $493,750.

Did any of those names jump out at you? If it didn’t, it should. You see, one of those executives who received excessive bonuses was none other than Jamie Gorelick. Yes, this is the same Jamie Gorelick who was part of the Reno Justice Department that threatened criminal investigations for not making more loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. Gorelick was working at Fannie Mae after leaving the Justice Department in the mid-90s. She was replaced by Eric Holder.

So, now, we have Jamie Gorelick deeply involved and partially responsible for two of the huge crisis that have shook this nation and, in the case of the credit industry, is still threatening to plunge us into a depression.

Now, fast forward to the present day.

President Obama summoned the BP Chairman of the Board to the Whitehouse to discuss issue surrounding the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Eric Holder, the Attorney General, was present. That was a highly sensitive issue because he has already announced that a criminal investigation of BP is underway. I’m wondering why BP would even sit down with the President and talk when they are being investigated by the Justice Department.

Anyway, they had a sit-down where the President basically conducted a shakedown of BP. BP agreed to put $20,000,000,000 into an escrow fund to be administered by someone the President appoints. It is being reported this morning that Joe Biden leaned over the table and told BP “Listen, either you put 20 million in escrow or we’ll do it for you.” Since this is not a government office, the normal rules of government accountability don’t apply here. This has the potential for all kind of bad things to happen. Don’t forget, Barak Obama was the recipient of the largest amount of BP campaign donations, according to The Center for Responsive Politics.

But imagine my surprise and amazement when I found out who was sitting on BP’s side of the table during this meeting at the Whitehouse. It was none other than Jamie Gorelick, ‘fix-it’ insider for the 9/11 Commission and insider in the Fannie Mae Scandal.

3 issues that have shaken this country to its core, and Jamie Gorelick is in the middle of all three of them.

Does that give you the feeling that the Obama Administration’s dealings with, and handling of, the BP Oil Spill are all above board?

Trying to collapse this country!