House Panel Issues Countrywide Subpoena

October 23, 2009 2:48 PM

ABCNews' Matthew Jaffe reports: The chairman of the House Oversight Committee today announced that he will issue a subpoena for documents connected to Countrywide Financial’s VIP program to determine if the collapsed lender gave sweetheart deals to federal government officials and members of Congress.

“We need to clarify unanswered questions about Countrywide Financial’s VIP program, so I am issuing a subpoena to gather information about how that program worked and whether it provided special benefits to government officials,” said Rep. Ed. Towns, D-NY, in a statement. “I am prepared to issue additional subpoenas if other companies fail to respond to our document requests.”

“The subpoena to Countrywide covers records that could show special treatment for members of Congress,” he noted.

Towns’ subpoena comes one day after two committee Democrats, Reps. Paul Hodes, D-NH, and Mike Quigley, D-NH, told Towns they supported the subpoena. The support of the two Democrats would have given Republicans the votes they needed to issue the subpoena, a GOP committee aide told ABC News on Thursday.

The dispute over the subpoena has dominated the panel in recent weeks as Towns rebuffed numerous attempts by the ranking Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, to issue it. Many Democrats denounced the GOP push as a political stunt to embarrass Senate Democrats Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, who got special VIP loans through Countrywide.

After Towns’ initial refusal to issue the subpoena, Issa attempted to bring the matter to a committee vote, but a bizarre sequence of events prevented the California lawmaker from doing so. First, last Thursday Democrats huddled in a back room to deny Republicans the quorum they needed to bring the matter to a vote, but a GOP aide videotaped the Democrats leaving the back room through a side door. Then this Tuesday Democrats changed the locks on the hearing room’s doors. Today Towns denied that he had locked out the GOP members.

“These reports are incorrect,” Towns said. “Republicans have at no time been denied access to the hearing room or their offices.”

But earlier this week, Towns, when asked why the locks were changed, told Politico, “Because they [Republicans] don’t know how to behave.”

Towns today said he reached an agreement with Issa about how to prevent violations of the use of hearing rooms and now considered the matter “resolved”.

The New York lawmaker today also sent letters to Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, GMAC, and US Bank Home Mortgage looking for information as part of the committee’s wider mortgage investigation.

-Matthew Jaffe