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Barney Frank Admits Lies
October 22, 2010
From the Desk of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton:
More Barney Frank Lies Exposed
If you listen to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) defend his role in the meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he was just as blindsided as the rest of us when the two government sponsored enterprises collapsed, triggering the financial crisis.
Frank has been peddling this fiction ever since the economy collapsed in September 2008. But as the The Boston Globe notes in a new, devastating article published on October 14, not many people are buying Frankâs lies anymore. And Frank knows it. Heâs facing a surprisingly tough reelection fight, so heâs on an apology tour through the media to save his seat. (Judicial Watch does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office.)
Hereâs an excerpt from the Globe piece (although I highly recommend you read the article in full):
When US Representative Barney Frank spoke in a packed hearing room on Capitol Hill seven years ago, he did not imagine that his words would eventually haunt a reelection bid.
The issue that day in 2003 was whether mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fiscally strong. Frank declared with his trademark confidence that they were, accusing critics and regulators of exaggerating threats to Fannieâs and Freddieâs financial integrity. And, the Massachusetts Democrat maintained, âeven if there were problems, the federal government doesnât bail them out.â
Now, itâs clear he was wrong on both pointsâŠ
Hereâs the thing. Frank wasnât wrong. He was lying.
Frank claims that he âmissedâ the warning signs with Fannie and Freddie because he was wearing âideological blinders,â which was just his lame attempt to blame Republicans. But we all know he didnât miss them. He just chose to ignore them.
CORRUPTION CHRONICLES
Judicial Watch uncovered documents last year proving that members of Congress, including — and perhaps especially — Barney Frank, were well aware that Fannie and Freddie were in deep trouble due to corruption and incompetence and yet they did nothing to stop it.
Remember this statement by Frank during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie?
I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.
I donât think there was any question Frank knew then that there was a threat to the Treasury. But letâs say, just for argumentâs sake, that you happen to believe Barney Frank honestly âmissedâ the warning signs in 2003 and 2004. What about 2008?
According to the Globe story:
In July 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called Frank and told him the government would need to spend âbillions of taxpayer dollars to backstop the institutions from catastrophic failure,â according to Paulsonâs recent book. Frank, despite that conversation, appeared on national television two days later and said the companies were âfundamentally sound, not in danger of going under.â
Unlike 2003 â when, Frank said, he didnât realize what was going on â this time, he was deliberately trying to reassure the public, he said.
âIt was part of a conscious strategy to say to people, âHey, look, we think we can handle this,ââ he said. âIt didnât work.â
Less than two months later, the government seized Fannie and Freddie and the bailout began.
And it hasnât stopped yet. Just yesterday, we learned that the Obama administration projects losses on the two entities could approach $363 billion. And there is no upper limit to taxpayer losses over the long term.
I find it pathetic and insulting that Barney Frank, the consummate Washington insider, would try to âplay dumbâ with respect to corruption at Fannie and Freddie. He knew what was happening at Fannie and Freddie. He actively blocked attempts to reform the institutions and then lied, by his own admission, to the American people about the whole sordid affair.
Frankâs unwillingness to hold Fannie and Freddie accountable has nothing to do with wearing âideological blinders.â It has to do with Frankâs âethical blinders.â
Florida Court Slams Obamacare
With lawsuits against Obamacare currently winding their way through the courts, there is no question the âlawâ will eventually arrive before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, a federal judge in Florida recently (and quite colorfully) questioned the constitutionality of Obamacare as he ruled that the stateâs pending lawsuit can go to trial.
According to The Washington Times:
A federal court judge in Florida ruledâŠthat key portions of a lawsuit challenging the Obama administrationâs health care reform law can go forward, and accused the Justice Department of taking an âAlice-in-Wonderlandâ approach to its defense of the controversial âpenaltyâ for people who donât buy insurance.
Though itâs just a preliminary ruling, Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinsonâs decision to let the case proceed is a victory for opponents of the law, since it means he will ultimately decide the merits of the challenge brought by 20 states.
Judge Vinson said the states can challenge the constitutionality of whether provisions in the law violate state sovereignty through expansion of the Medicaid program and if Congress exceeded its authority by forcing people to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.
Judge Vinsonâs âAlice in Wonderlandâ comparison relates specifically to some clever word-smithing on the part of Democrats when they rammed Obamacare through Congress. Opponents of Obamacare argued that the penalties associated with the âhealthcare mandateâ really represented a massive tax increase on the middle class. Liberals scoffed at the notion, arguing that the âhealthcare mandateâ would result in âpenalties,â not taxes. Judge Vinson saw right through this argument in his ruling, which you can read in its entirety here:
Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an âAlice-in-Wonderlandâ tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely, thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check.
Judge Vinsonâs decision shows that Obamacare is not only a constitutional issue, but also a corruption issue.
As the Times piece points out, this is a preliminary ruling, but it certainly demonstrates that Judge Vinson has some significant concerns regarding the constitutionality of Obamacare, as do most Americans across the country.
The article notes that there are at least 20 states suing over Obamacare, and they include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington. As key components of the law come into effect over the next few years, we can expect more legal challenges.
You may recall that in May Judicial Watch held an educational panel that asked the question, âIs Obamacare Unconstitutional?â (You can check out the video here.) Hereâs a quick excerpt from comments by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), one of our panelists, on the issue of a healthcare mandate:
Consider for a moment the 1994 debate about Hillarycare, which never did pass the Congress of the United States. The Congressional Budget Office said that an individual mandate was an unprecedented form of federal action, and that Congress has never forced people to buy any good or service as a condition of law for residents of the United States. That is exactly the constitutional issue on the individual mandate the courts are going to be called upon to decide.
Your Judicial Watch is also on the case. In addition to monitoring the constitutional challenges, we are investigating the implementation of the Obamacare system by Big Government bureaucrats at HHS and at other government agencies.
JW Pursues Justice against Afghanistan for Victim of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
More than nine years after the attacks of 9/11, Judicial Watch continues to pursue justice on behalf of a widower of one of the victims that day. In fact, JW attorney Jim Peterson was in a federal court in New York last week arguing our case against the Islamic State of Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden on behalf of our client, âJohn Doe.â
I have not covered this lawsuit in quite a while, so letâs just take a quick look at the back-story.
On 9/11, our clientâs wife, âJane Doeâ was attending a meeting on an upper floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center when United Airlines flight 175 struck the tower several floors below. âJane Doeâ was 47 years old at the time of her death and was survived by her husband, our client and their two children.
In December 2001, Judicial Watch filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of âJohn Doeâ with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Bin Laden and the State of Afghanistan âfor conspiracy and wrongful death under the noncommercial tort exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).â
This ânoncommercial tort exceptionâ provides that a foreign state shall not be immune from liability in any case âin which money damages are sought against a foreign state for personal injury … occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of that foreign state….â (âTortiousâ is a legal term for âwrongful.â)
Now, catching you up to date quickly on what has transpired since. In 2003, the court clerk filed a default against Afghanistan for failing to respond to the lawsuit. Afghanistan eventually did respond in 2004, moving to vacate the default and filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In September 2008, Judicial Watch earned a major victory when the U.S. District Court âdenied without prejudiceâ Afghanistanâs motion to dismiss. Afghanistan quickly appealed the lawsuit and got it moved to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where it now sits.
Lawyers for Afghanistan are attempting to argue, based on a previous (and awful) ruling by the Second Circuit, that Judicial Watchâs client is not entitled to sue under the ânoncommercial tort exceptionâ of the FSIA. They say a country can only be held accountable for terrorist acts if they are on the State Departmentâs list of terrorist supporting countries. (The other decision concerned lawsuits brought by our client and other 9/11 victims against Saudi financiers of the 9/11 attacks.)
As we argued, another court found that the issue is relative simple, ruling that âthe noncommercial tort exception applied to âall tort actions for money damagesâ and âseems facially to apply to Doeâs factual allegations.ââ
Actually, the Court took it much further than that, saying that Afghanistanâs interpretation of this exception is âpeculiarâ and would lead to an âabsurdâ result Congress could not have intended.
I am going to include quite a bit of language from our complaint on this point because I want to drive home the importance of this lawsuit and why Judicial Watch continues to fight so aggressively in court on behalf of our client nine years after the attacks:
âŠAs the District Court correctly observed, the construction of the FSIA advanced by Afghanistan would lead to absurd results, which Congress most certainly did not intend when it adopted § 1605(a)(7) [exceptions to the immunity of a foreign state]. For example, because § 1605(a)(7) applies not only to terrorist attacks, but also acts of kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial killing, Afghanistanâs interpretation of the FSIA would permit foreign sovereigns to kill, torture and hold hostage U.S. citizens on American soil with impunity, so long as they are not designated state sponsors of terrorism.
Furthermore, because jurisdiction under § 1605(a)(7) is available only where the claimant or victim was a national of the United States at the time of the underlying incident, Afghanistanâs theoryâŠwould leave aliens killed or injured in terrorist attacks on American soil with no basis for obtaining subject matter jurisdiction over a responsible foreign sovereign for their injuries, even where the responsible foreign sovereign is a designated state sponsor of terrorism.
Likewise, because § 1605(a)(7) does not apply to claims for âproperty damage,â Afghanistanâs construction of the FSIA would leave victims of property damage caused by terrorist attacks in the United States without any means for obtaining jurisdiction over a responsible foreign sovereign, even if those victims are U.S. nationals and the responsible foreign sovereign is a designated state sponsor of terrorism.
Congress simply could not have intended such absurd results when it provided additional rights to victims of terrorist attacks through the adoption of § 1605(a)(7).
Put another way, Afghanistanâs interpretation of the FSIA exception would allow Judicial Watch to sue Afghanistan if its ambassador ran over our clientâs cat, but not for sending terrorists to murder nearly 3,000 innocents, including our clientâs wife. This we cannot abide and neither should the court.
Until next weekâŠ
Tom Fitton
President
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