Bush is the devil and the devil made me do it

By Thomas Lifson

That seems to be the gist of the argument being presented by Franklin Raines, to explain his fall from grace. Readers may recall that Raines was an extraordinary success story: son of black janitors, Harvard undergrad and law degrees, Rhodes Scholar, investment banker, White House official under Bill Clintonm and then richly-remunerated head of quasi-public Fannie Mae, the Federally-guaranteed private company which makes a market in home mortgages.

It all came crashing down about him when it was revealed that certain, ahem, accounting irregularities overstated earnings by billions, and inflated the bonus payments received by Raines. He received more than $90 million from 1998 to 2003, including more than $50 million in bonuses tied to the company hitting earnings targets, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is suing him to recover some of these funds. He also faces a huge potential liability from shareholder lawsuits.

But now, according to CNN Money (hat tip: News Alert):

The former chief executive officer of Fannie Mae says the Bush administration helped orchestrate an accounting scandal that cost him his job and that he wants to use White House documents to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit.

Franklin Raines, who served as President Clinton's budget director, argues in court documents that the Bush administration felt the government-chartered agency wielded too much power in the mortgage industry. His attorneys say the White House pushed regulators to weaken Fannie Mae and triggered a $6 billion accounting scandal.

So he's a victim, forced to accept tens of millions of dollars in compensation based on dubious accounting results of his company's earnings. Greed had notjing to do with it. He's just a public-spirited liberal. A fishing expedition into White House files is just the thing to demonstrate the evil outside forces which bear the real responsibility for his management of his company.

Right. A babe in the woods Rhodes Scholar, tricked by what the left still regards as the dumbest president in history.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky