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| Chris Dodd's Irish 'Cottage' |
| 2009-03-12 |
| To their enduring credit the Wall Street Journal has not given up on shining the spotlight on that appalling hypocrite, Senator Dodd. The Senate Ethics Committee has been looking into possible conflicts of interest in Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's 2003 mortgages. Now questions about another Dodd real-estate adventure, this one in Ireland, should keep the Ethicists even busier. All the more because Mr. Dodd's "cottage" purchase involves a crooked stock trader for whom the Senator once did a very big political favor. Mr. Dodd is already under a cloud for receiving what a former loan officer claims was preferential treatment from Countrywide Financial on two mortgage refinancings -- in Connecticut and Washington -- in 2003. Countrywide was an aggressive lender to shaky borrowers and relied heavily on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those mortgages in bulk. As a senior Member of the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Dodd was one of Fannie's greatest promoters. Mr. Dodd promised last year to disclose mortgage documents to prove he got no special treatment, but so far all he's done is let a few hand-picked journalists take a quick peek before he put the papers back in storage. Now enterprising Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie has uncovered another suspicious real-estate investment. The story starts in 1994, when the Senator became one-third owner of a 10-acre estate, then valued at $160,000, on the island of Inishnee on Galway Bay. The property is near the fashionable village of Roundstone, a well-known celebrity haunt. William Kessinger bought the other two-thirds share in the estate. Edward Downe, Jr., who has been a business partner of Mr. Kessinger, signed the deed as a witness. Senator Dodd and Mr. Downe are long-time friends, and in 1986 they had purchased a condominium together in Washington, D.C. Mr. Downe is also quite the character. The year before the Galway deal, in 1993, he pleaded guilty to insider trading and securities fraud and in 1994 agreed to pay the SEC $11 million in a civil settlement. The crimes were felonies and in 2001, as President Clinton was getting ready to leave office, Mr. Dodd successfully lobbied the White House for a full pardon for Mr. Downe. The next year -- according to a transfer document at the Irish land registry viewed by Mr. Rennie -- Mr. Kessinger sold his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd for $122,351. The Senator says he actually paid Mr. Kessinger $127,000, which he claims was based on an appraisal at the time. That means, at best, poor Mr. Kessinger earned less than 19% over eight years on the sale of his two-thirds share to Mr. Dodd. But according to Ireland's Central Bank, prices of existing homes in Ireland quadrupled from 1994 to 2004. Perhaps Mr. Kessinger is a lousy businessman. Or maybe he merely relied on Mr. Dodd to tell him how much the property was worth. In his Senate financial disclosure documents from 2002-2007, Mr. Dodd reported that the Galway home was worth between $100,001 and $250,000. However, Mr. Rennie reports that in 2006 and 2007 the Senator added a footnote that reads: "value based on appraisal at time of purchase." Mr. Dodd had good reason to add the qualifier. Senate rules call for valuations to be current and anyone who looked into the estimate would immediately spot Mr. Dodd's lowballing. A June 17, 2007 feature in Britain's Sunday Times did just that. "Diary" observed that in Roundstone "a two-bed recently made E680,000 ($918,000) and a cottage is currently on offer for E800,000." Noting Mr. Dodd's estimate of his property -- between E75,000 and E185,000 -- the diarist quipped, "to hell with the stamp duty, and form an orderly queue." Mr. Dodd is busy these days blaming everyone else for the real-estate bubble and financial meltdown. But he owes his constituents and the Senate an honest accounting of his Galway property over the past 15 years. If its value grew with the rest of the area, he needs to explain why Mr. Kessinger handed it over for a song, why that isn't an unreported gift under Senate rules, and what role Mr. Downe might have played as a middleman. More broadly, Connecticut voters might want to know why their senior Senator has hung around for years with Mr. Downe, the kind of financial scoundrel Mr. Dodd spends so much time denouncing. The ability of an hypocrite like Dodd to keep on keeping on in full public gaze just amazes me. There must be a sociopathic streak similar to Madoff's capacity to maintain a pretense for so long. It is beyond my understanding. |
| Posted by:Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 |
| #2 What do you expect from a guy who has never held a job outside of politics? You get what others pay for. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2009-03-12 13:27 |
| #1 Well, it appears his constituents have noticed... Dodd's problems were underscored by a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showing Dodd essentially tied with former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, who lost his 2nd District congressional seat in 2006 and is a likely challenger to Dodd. The poll showed Simmons ahead by 43 percent to 42 percent, making the race a statistical dead heat because of the margin of error. Republicans and political insiders said the poll shows that Dodd's vulnerability is real, and it could mark a turning point in the campaign because it indicates that a Republican is clearly within striking distance of a career incumbent who has held a seat in Congress for nearly 35 years. "These numbers have to worry Sen. Dodd," said Douglas Schwartz, the poll's director. "Former Congressman Simmons is not well known outside his district, yet he is running neck and neck with Dodd at this point." Simmons, who served three terms in Congress before losing in 2006, said in an interview Tuesday that he expects to decide whether to run within the next 10 days. "It's kind of amazing that I'm head to head with a sitting senator with 34 years [in Washington], and I'm right up there with him," Simmons said. "It's very encouraging. ... Sen. Dodd has been absent without leave. I think that's why his poll ratings are so low. There's nothing in here that I have done. It's all about what he has done to himself." |
| Posted by: tu3031 2009-03-12 10:27 |