July 29, 2009

Countrywide Probe Puts Rep. Towns in Tight Spot

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Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House oversight committee, has some deep thinking to do. By week’s end, he tells The Hill, he’ll render a verdict on whether his committee will launch a full-scale investigation into failed subprime lender Countrywide Financial. It’s an investigation the committee’s minority staff, under Darrell Issa, has been pursuing for more than a year, with a particular focus on the company’s “Friends of Angelo” VIP loan program. But in order to take his probe to the next level, Issa needs the backing of the full committee to subpoena records from Bank of America, which took over Countrywide following its epic collapse. And Issa has been pressing hard for Towns’ cooperation. Towns, meanwhile, has been dragging his heels on this. Why? One potential reason is because this investigation could shed unflattering light on the favorable financing some congressional lawmakers received through Mozilo’s VIP program.

These alleged sweetheart deals, first reported last summer, have bubbled back up in the news recently. On Monday, the AP reported that a former Countrywide employee has provided some damaging information to Republican oversight investigators and members of the Senate Ethics Committee relating to VIP loans granted to Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). According to the AP, Robert Feinberg, who worked in the company’s VIP loan section, has said that Conrad and Dodd were made fully aware that they were receiving favorable treatment, a claim both lawmakers strongly deny. This scrutiny comes at a particularly inconvenient time for Dodd, who’s already in serious jeopardy of losing his senate seat in the upcoming election.

This puts Towns in a tight spot. If he goes forward with an investigation, he risks tainting fellow Democrats, as well as other lawmakers who may have received Friends of Angelo financing. If he doesn’t, he leaves himself open to charges that he is playing politics, forsaking his oversight role to provide cover for congressional colleagues. Issa surely isn’t going to let this go quietly.

So what’s it going to be Rep. Towns?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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