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1. Barney Frank Hit Over Boyfriend’s Fannie Mae Role
Critics
are crying “conflict of interest” over Democratic Rep. Barney Frank’s
live-in relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses while Frank
was on the House Banking Committee.
Moses was Fannie Mae’s assistant director for product initiatives from 1991 to 1998.
He
was also openly gay Frank’s live-in boyfriend during that time, while
the Massachusetts lawmaker was on the committee that had jurisdiction
over government-sponsored Fannie Mae, Fox News’ Bill Sammon reported.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the center of the recent financial meltdown, the relationship is coming under increased scrutiny.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute.
“He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“But everyone wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
A
top Republican House aide told Fox News: “He writes housing and banking
laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from
those laws? No media ever take note?”
Frank and Moses met in 1987 and lived together in Washington, D.C., until they split up in 1998.
National
Mortgage News disclosed that Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s
affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”
Critics
charge that such programs led to the mortgage meltdown and the recent
government takeover of Fannie Mae, according to Fox News, which noted
that Fannie Mae and its financial cousin Freddie Mac “are blamed for
spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.”
In
1994, Frank thwarted efforts by President Clinton’s Department of
Housing and Urban Development to impose new regulations on Fannie Mae.
Editor's Note: