Countrywide bent own rules to favor Chris Dodd

"An executive at mortgage giant Countrywide Financial overrode the company's loan-writing policies to give a discount to Sen. Christopher Dodd, the powerful chairman of the Senate banking committee, according to an internal Countrywide document turned over to congressional investigators and obtained by The Courant.

But paperwork, e-mails and other loan documents reviewed as part of the congressional probe include no direct evidence that Dodd was aware at the time that he was getting a discount, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

And a Dodd spokesman Thursday repeated the senator's contention that there was nothing in the negotiation or loan process that was unusual or out of the ordinary.

Dodd, who refinanced two mortgages with Countrywide in 2003, has said that he did not know that he had been placed in a special group of customers known as "Friends of Angelo" — a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo — or that he might have received preferential loan terms. Internal Countrywide documents do not contradict that assertion, a congressional source said."

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-dodd-countrywide-0320.artmar20,0,5251192.story