Well at least the government -subsidized mortgage industry is efficacious and legally astute in one respect.  The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim has this investigative report on Fannie Me and Freddie Mac getting rid of its own inspector general:

There is no independent auditor overseeing the federal agency responsible for some $6 trillion in home mortgages, because the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the agency’s inspector general didn’t have authority to operate, according to internal memos obtained by the Huffington Post.

The ruling came in response to a request from the Federal Housing Finance Agency itself — which means that a federal agency essentially succeeded in getting rid of its own inspector general.

The FHFA is home to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, which are jointly responsible for purchasing or guaranteeing more than 80 percent of new mortgages issued since the middle of 2008, according to FHFA numbers.

Grim report that FHFA got rids of its IG because it was a new federal agency, created out of housing reform legislation last year, and IG Ed Kelley was confirmed auditor of the old Federal Housing Finance Board. Kelley, therefore, needs a new presidential nomination and Senate confirmation to be auditor of the new, and basically the same, FHFA.

The irony, of course, is that the same legislation meant to more effectively run Fannie and Freddie has created an executive branch realignment that takes away Fannie and Freddie’s new auditor. Between FHFA and the continued struggles of TARP IG Neil Barofsky to get information out of the Treasury Dept., the Obama administration has less than rigorously scrutinized the federal agencies in charge of righting the economy.

Comment RSS - You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.