Quote:
Originally Posted by Botnst
Dodd reaped campaign cash from AIG
Democratic Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd is the chief beneficiary of campaign cash from American Interational Group, AIG, the insurance firm at the center of public outrage for handing out lavish bonuses.
Dodd has received more campaign donations from AIG's political action committee and employees than any other lawmaker. Records made available by the Center for Responsive Politics show Dodd received $280,238 of the more than $4 million AIG has spent trying to influence Washington this decade.
In the aftermath of disclosures AIG spent hundreds of millions of taxdollars giving employees generous bonuses, a handful of Democrats have proposed imposing a heavy tax, between 90 to 100 percent, on AIG's bonus pay to recoup the money.
While many members of Congress consider this idea there has been confusion about Dodd's role in placing limits on executive pay in the president's stimulus bill.
Fox Business reported Dodd inserted language into the bill to place restrictions on any bonuses given by companies being assisted by the goverment that were handed out after February 11. Therefore, the "Dodd Amendment" would have effectively protected the bonuses AIG handed out to their executives since the bonuses were doled out before that date. ABC News similarly reported "Dodd's measure explicitly exempted bonuses agreed to prior to the passage of the stimulus bill."
more at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/back-story/2009/Mar/17/dodd-reaped-campaign-cash-from-aig/ |
No, not that Chris Dodd???
Chris Dodd's Irish "Cottage"
The Senate Ethics Committee has been looking into possible conflicts of interest in Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's 2003 mortgages. Now questions about another Dodd real-estate adventure, this one in Ireland, should keep the Ethicists even busier. All the more because Mr. Dodd's "cottage" purchase involves a crooked stock trader for whom the Senator once did a very big political favor.
Mr. Dodd is already under a cloud for receiving what a former loan officer claims was preferential treatment from Countrywide Financial on two mortgage refinancings -- in Connecticut and Washington -- in 2003. Countrywide was an aggressive lender to shaky borrowers and relied heavily on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those mortgages in bulk. As a senior Member of the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Dodd was one of Fannie's greatest promoters. Mr. Dodd promised last year to disclose mortgage documents to prove he got no special treatment, but so far all he's done is let a few hand-picked journalists take a quick peek before he put the papers back in storage.
Now enterprising Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie has uncovered another suspicious real-estate investment. The story starts in 1994, when the Senator became one-third owner of a 10-acre estate, then valued at $160,000, on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay. The property is near the fashionable village of Roundstone, a well-known celebrity haunt.
William Kessinger bought the other two-thirds share in the estate. Edward Downe, Jr., who has been a business partner of Mr. Kessinger, signed the deed as a witness. Senator Dodd and Mr. Downe are long-time friends, and in 1986 they had purchased a condominium together in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Downe is also quite the character. The year before the Galway deal, in 1993, he pleaded guilty to insider trading and securities fraud and in 1994 agreed to pay the SEC $11 million in a civil settlement. The crimes were felonies and in 2001, as President Clinton was getting ready to leave office, Mr. Dodd successfully lobbied the White House for a full pardon for Mr. Downe.
The next year -- according to a transfer document at the Irish land registry viewed by Mr. Rennie -- Mr. Kessinger sold his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd for $122,351. The Senator says he actually paid Mr. Kessinger $127,000, which he claims was based on an appraisal at the time. That means, at best, poor Mr. Kessinger earned less than 19% over eight years on the sale of his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd. But according to Ireland's Central Bank, prices of existing homes in Ireland quadrupled from 1994 to 2004.
Perhaps Mr. Kessinger is a lousy businessman. Or maybe he merely relied on Mr. Dodd to tell him how much the property was worth. In his Senate financial disclosure documents from 2002-2007, Mr. Dodd reported that the Galway home was worth between $100,001 and $250,000. However, Mr. Rennie reports that in 2006 and 2007 the Senator added a footnote that reads: "value based on appraisal at time of purchase."
Mr. Dodd had good reason to add the qualifier. Senate rules call for valuations to be current and anyone who looked into the estimate would immediately spot Mr. Dodd's lowballing. A June 17, 2007 feature in Britain's Sunday Times did just that. "Diary" observed that in Roundstone "a two-bed recently made E680,000 ($918,000) and a cottage is currently on offer for E800,000." Noting Mr. Dodd's estimate of his property -- between E75,000 and E185,000 -- the diarist quipped, "to hell with the stamp duty, and form an orderly queue."
Mr. Dodd is busy these days blaming everyone else for the real-estate bubble and financial meltdown. But he owes his constituents and the Senate an honest accounting of his Galway property over the past 15 years. If its value grew with the rest of the area, he needs to explain why Mr. Kessinger handed it over for a song, why that isn't an unreported gift under Senate rules, and what role Mr. Downe might have played as a middleman.
More broadly, Connecticut voters might want to know why their senior Senator has hung around for years with Mr. Downe, the kind of financial scoundrel Mr. Dodd spends so much time denouncing.
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