On the heels of a previous report that Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager, took $2 million from the mortgage giant, The New York Times reports tonight that Rick Davis was paid an additional $15,000 per month, up until last month, by Freddie Mac for access to John McCain:
One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.
The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.
Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.
They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.
Newsweek also follows up on the Rick Davis all access pass to John McCain:
Since 2006, the federally sponsored mortgage giant Freddie Mac has paid at least $345,000 to the lobbying and consulting firm of John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement.
Freddie Mac had previously paid an advocacy group run by Davis, called the Homeownership Alliance, $30,000 a month until the end 2005, when that group was dissolved. That relationship was the subject of a New York Times story Monday, which drew angry denunciations from the McCain campaign. McCain and his aides have vehemently objected to suggestions that Davis has ties to Freddie Mac—an especially sensitive issue given that the Republican presidential candidate has blamed "the lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats" for the mortgage crisis that recently prompted the Bush administration to take over both Freddie Mac and its companion, Fannie Mae, and put them under federal conservatorship.
But neither the Times story—nor the McCain campaign—revealed that Davis’s lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, based in Washington, D.C., continued to receive $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month—long after the Homeownership Alliance had been terminated. The two sources, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive information, told NEWSWEEK that Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac’s senior vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain’s campaign manager and it was felt you couldn’t say no," said one of the sources. [McLoughlin did not return phone calls].
When asked about his own campaign manager’s associations with the mortgage giants, McCain, in an interview with CNBC Sunday night, said that Davis "has had nothing to do" with the Homeownship Alliance since it disbanded and "I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it." (The Homeownership Alliance was set up and funded by both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to promote the goal of home ownership and counter efforts to impose tighter regulations on the two federally sponsored entities.)
Davis, in a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign on Monday, said "it’s been over three years since there’s been any activity in this area and since I had any contact with those folks." Davis also said he "had a severed leave of absence" from his lobbying and consulting firm, and "I’ve taken no compensation from my firm for 18 months." (A campaign spokesman said that Davis receives no partnership distribution under his arrangement).
This news comes after John McCain denied over the weekend that his campaign manager had any recent links to Freddie Mac.
It is now becoming clear who John McCain will represent if he is elected president.
