June 10, 2008
Obama VP Vetter Draws Scrutiny
Politico: Questions Raised About Financial Dealings Of Washington Insider Jim Johnson
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Jim Johnson arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington Monday, June 9, 2008, for a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (AP)
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Photo Essay Obama Claims Nomination Barack Obama secures the Democratic presidential nomination in historic race against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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Photo Essay Barack Obama A look at the life and meteoric rise of the president-elect.
Jim Johnson, the disciplined, discreet and obsessively meticulous vice presidential vetter for Barack Obama, is a stalwart of the Washington establishment.
In the mid-1990s, he headed up a power trifecta: mortgage giant Fannie Mae, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Brookings Institution, one of the city’s most prominent think tanks. At various times, political insiders have floated his name in Democratic administrations for White House chief of staff, Treasury secretary and president of the World Bank.
His circumspect ways - rare in a town known for its shameless attention seekers - have helped make the reserved Minnesotan one of Washington’s most influential powerbrokers and an early pick by the Obama campaign to handle the sensitive search for a running mate.
Yet despite Johnson’s legendary fastidiousness, his high-profile campaign role has suddenly exposed him to questions about his financial dealings. The questions range from his relationship with the embattled CEO of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial to his more recent oversight roles on various corporate compensation committees that approved hefty executive pay packages.
In a presidential campaign where the subprime mortgage crisis and high corporate salaries figure to be staples of debate, Johnson is now at risk of becoming a political liability for Obama, who’s trying to sell anxious voters on an economic message that calls for stricter financial industry regulation and ridding Washington of special favors and tax breaks for wealthy CEOs.
On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Johnson received at least $7 million worth of home loans from Countrywide through an informal program for friends of company CEO Angelo Mozilo that offered rates below the market average. At least four of the loans were issued while Johnson was employed either as the CEO or an outside consultant for Fannie Mae.
In 2006, five companies where Johnson served on compensation committees came under fire from Institutional Shareholders Services and The Corporate Library, two corporate compensation research companies, for accounting errors and failing to sufficiently tie executive payment to performance.
On Monday, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain referred to Johnson’s ties to Countrywide in an interview with Fox News.
“I think it suggests a bit of a contradiction talking about how his campaign is gonna be not associated with people like that. Clearly he is very much associated with that,” McCain said.
Countrywide, one of the nation’s biggest lenders, has come under significant scrutiny for its role in the current housing crisis by issuing risky, subprime loans. Obama has criticized the firm’s executives for taking millions in compensation, as consumers struggle to stay in their homes.
For the Obama campaign, the flap emerged as an unwelcome distraction as he kicked off a two-week economic tour in North Carolina-one which threatened to seriously undermine his message.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy for the McCain campaign to try and make (the loans) an issue when John Green, one of John McCain’s top advisors, lobbied for Ameriquest, which was one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders and a key player in the mortgage crisis,” responded the Obama campaign, which described the media scrutiny of the loans as “overblown and irrelevant.”
Signaling the campaign’s intention to fan the flames over Johnson’s ties to Countrywide, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds issued the following statement in response.
"There is nothing 'overblown and irrelevant' about millions of Americans facing foreclosure and Barack Obama entrusting his most important decision as a presidential candidate to a man who has accepted millions in special loans from a subprime mortgage lender.”
Johnson, who is a vice chairman o the private banking firm Perseus LLC, did not return calls for comment.
Despite the controversy, Democratic insiders maintain that Johnson is highly-skilled at the vetting process, having handled the responsibilities for Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004.
“He’s been around for a long time and I think he learned from his various experiences,” said former Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), now a partner at law firm Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan and Suelthaus. “He’s a very respected person in the Democratic Party. People look to him as having good judgment.”
In 2004, Johnson eventually pared down a wide range of candidates to about 25 serious contenders. A team of about 100 aides poured through their public documents, school transcripts, videos, legislation, and health and military records.
“There was an understanding that first of all the information that is being disclosed is highly confidential,” recalled political consultant Tad Devine, an adviser on the Kerry campaign. “He’s known some of these people for years and years. He has a relationship with them, and they know they could trust him and he would be straight with them.”
For all the work put into the search, the pairing between Kerry and then-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards wasn’t a perfect match. During the campaign, the candidates struggled to warm to each other and eventually failed to mend a frosty relationship.
But the disappointing outcome doesn’t diminish Johnson’s scrutinizing skills, say Democratic insiders, who argue he is an ideal vetter for Obama’s campaign.
“Sen. Obama wants to send the message to the media and the political community that this is going to be a very strong process and it’s going to make a serious decision,” said Democratic political strategist Bill Carrick. “You don’t want to reinvent the wheel.”
By Lisa Lerer
Copyright 2008 POLITICO
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See all 46 CommentsMCCAIN:
Phil Gramm
Hagee
Charlie Black
Doug Goodyear
Seriously...ya''ll wanna go there cause there is plenty more.
Two Words:
Phil Gramm
Jim Johnson - Destroyer of the American Dream. Just ask scores of foreclosed Americans (whom Obama claims he''s for). Just ask Ed McMahon.
And friend and adviser to Obama - along with Wright, Pfleger, Brezinzski, Power, Lake, McPeak, Ayers and Dohrn, KKK Byrd, Khalidi, Rezko, Craig, Malley, Ross, Miller, Kurtzer - ALL America Haters and most of them Jew Baiters. And in the case of Wright, Pfleger, and Byrd, blatant RACISTS.
Now add Countrywide''s own Jim Johnson to the list.
Obama says he wants change? Sure he does - yours and mine.
Obama in ''08 - for White House Janitor.
"Show me your friends and I''ll tell you what kind of person you are." - Mom
Wright
Ayres
Rezko
Johnson
....and counting
How many more will it take?
The question is if we want a man in the White House who will regularly give his ear to the likes of a Reverend Wright, his and Sabeel%u2019s replacement theologies, and pro-terrorist propagandists like Ali Abunimah on a regular basis? In one sense, Obama could be considered the ISM%u2019s Manchurian candidate given his wide connections to ISM activists and campaign movements such as the Wheels of Justice Tour, Joseph Carr a.k.a. Joseph Smith, Hannah Mermelstein, Anna Baltzer and others.
Obama is good for Hamas
Obama is bad for America
Obama is good for Black Panthers
Obama is bad for first amendment
Obama is good for Gangs
Come to think of it Obama is Good for Racism, Islam, terrorist and Marxism.
If Barack Obama didn%u2019t know about Abunimah%u2019s writings (and Abunimah says he did), the same as his claims of being unaware of Reverend Wright%u2019s remarks after 20 years, then Obama is not competent to be our President. Abunimah likes to lie and claim Al Awda has nothing to do with the ISM or Electronic Intifada, though plenty of evidence exists on the website the homepage at www.StoptheISM.com showing the contrary.
But Obama%u2019s association with the ISM through his church and lobbying in Chicago goes even deeper than just his past links to Al Awda and Ali Abunimah. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, are both equally involved with the ISM.
Posted by nottellin1 at 01:15 AM : Jun 11, 2008
The rest of the world does not disrespect us for how we mind our own business--they disrespect us for always trying to mind theirs for them.
=========== hillary4mccain.com===========
Posted by fenner at 12:39 AM : Jun 11, 2008
Nope. The bottom line is you''re a racist and a sell out willing to destroy the Dem nominee to keep your status quo. Be strong--call it like it is "Hillary4McCain?" My, my HRC, look what your nasty and divisive campaign has wrought--may you reap the returns in 2012 or before..... LOL
Posted by nottellin1 at 12:15 AM : Jun 11, 2008
All systems trend toward entropy. Said another way, most companies will do anything they can get away with to make a buck. Government should indeed protect the market place from business. Pharmaceutical companies would (and do) sell faulty product, mfg would sell faulty items and investment firms and banks would lie and hide their meanings in obscure language if they could (and they do) just to siphon more money from the consumer. A good book to read is an oldie but still apt: "The Jungle" By Upton Sinclair. Businesses are not operating to help anyone except their bottom line and many would put you and your family''s very lives at risk and not care if there was no culpability. One has only to read about the drug scandals, Enron, and other scandals to know that without regulation, people WILL take advantage. As for borrowers--if a loan officer tells a desperate person that the loan will work, people do tend to think it will--this is human nature--government is supposed to be above the fray--to guard against the inherent "human nature" of both the public and the businesses that feed off of them.
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Posted by j-whitman at 12:25 AM : Jun 11, 2008
Sorry, but I think that this kind of thinking still attempts to shift blame from the poor, misguided individual who didn''t know any better and are not responsible because they were in too much of a hurry to read and understand their loan docs to institutions that did nothing more than give the people what they wanted. But sure, blame the GOP if you like so that the general public can continue to shift the blame away from thereselves like spoiled children. Do wonder the rest of the world disrespects us.
The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Obama is a ''post turtle''." Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a ''post turtle'' was. The old rancher said, "When you''re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced up on top, that''s a ''post turtle''."
The old rancher saw a puzzled look on the doctor''s face, so he continued to explain. "You know he didn''t get up there by himself, he doesn''t belong up there, he doesn''t know what to do while he is up there, and you just wonder what kind of a dumba*ss put him up there!%u201D
Now even Fannymae is billions in the hole for what Senator John Gramm another McCain lobbyist lobbied for less regulation & caused the problems in the mortgage & finance industry --- Don''t figure
Obama has proposed solutions to the mortgage crisis and if you''''re really interested in learning anything you can read about them on his website.
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Posted by realpatriot1 at 03:09 PM : Jun 10, 2008
This is such a great statement!!! Especially that part about how the government is supposed to protect the public FROM ABUSES. IMO all the mortgage industry did was make money more available to borderline risks and they were praised to the sky when poeple who oouldn''t previously afford to own a home were realize able to realize that dream. Until the interest rates adjusted as it stated in their contracts it would do. Worse now we have a declining economy and circumstances threaten to snowball downward. I''m sorry, I see the abuse coming from whoever bought a home that they knew very well they couldn''t afford and now, in many cases, taking advantage of the lenders by defaulting and leaving their properties in a shambles. I especially do not see it as our governments responsibility to protect the financial systems from the public''s misuse, so it can''t be expected or even desired to protect the public from their own misuse of our financial systems.
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