Richard Syron

Taxpayers Foot Legal Bills for Fannie and Freddie Execs

It’s a really bad deal for taxpayers that a federal watchdog is suggesting that the government only “limit,” but not stop, the exorbitant legal fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now paying on behalf of former executives who are accused of either securities or accounting fraud, and who drove these companies into the ground.

Both have paid nearly $100 million in legal fees to defend former executives, who have been named along with Freddie and Fannie, as defendants in a string of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages alleging securities fraud for Freddie, and accounting and securities fraud for Fannie.A third of those legal fees came after the government seized Fannie and Freddie. That means the very same executives who recklessly helped drive the two housing financiers into insolvency and into the arms of taxpayers can get still more taxpayer money to pay for their legal fees, where the government lets their lawyers bill for charges at every one tenth of an hour (yes, si...

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