As Congress addresses the subprime mortgage crisis, Hillary Clinton is catching flak for her campaign manager's past ties to a subprime mortgage lender, Delta Financial.
Newsday reported that Maggie Williams served as a Delta director from April 2000 until December 2007, when the firm declared bankruptcy. Williams earned about $200,000.
The national media have yet to report that Barack Obama supporter and, um, speechwriter, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, was a member of the board of ACC Capital Holdings, the parent company of Ameriquest Mortgage, a predatory lender that was sued by attorneys general in every state in which it did business.
Patrick reportedly served on the board for nearly two years and earned a $360,000 annual fee. He resigned in the midst of his 2006 campaign. But the Boston Globe reported:
Patrick placed a call to former US Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin, now a top executive at Citigroup, interceding on behalf of owners of Ameriquest Mortgage, which was seeking urgent financial assistance from the giant firm. When questioned by the Globe late Friday, Patrick defended the call, saying that he was not acting in his role as governor and that he simply offered a reference at the request of a top official at ACC Capital Holdings, which owns Ameriquest and other financial firms.
Patrick has since acknowledged the call was a “mistake.”
What’s that about people who live in glass houses should not throw stones?
