A Republican on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission tried to get his colleagues to help House GOPers repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, according to documents released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
Democrats released their report on the evidence uncovered by congressional investigators on the same day that Rep. Darrell Issa scrapped a hearing on the FCIC that was supposed to take place. Issa cancelled the hearing because, Democrats said, Republicans uncovered some evidence which didn’t fit their narrative.
Some of that evidence included emails from Republican Commissioner Peter Wallison, who works at the American Enterprise Institute, urging colleagues “to use
their positions on the Commission to help House Republicans in their efforts to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act,” according to a Democratic report:
For example, on November 3, 2010, the day after the mid-term congressional elections in which Republicans took control of the House, Republican Commissioner Peter Wallison emailed Republican Commissioner Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “It’s very important, I think, that what we say in our separate statements not undermine the ability of the new House GOP to modify or repeal Dodd-Frank.”
Wallison, who served as White House Counsel under former President Ronald Reagan, also “used his position to promote a theory of the economic crisis supported by Chairman Issa and put forth by Edward Pinto, a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI),” according to the report. The theory — by Ed Pinto, Wallison’s colleague at AEI — held that government housing policy was the primary cause of the nation’s economic crisis, and was ultimately rejected by all the other members of the Commission.
Wallison, in an interview with Dow Jones, dubbed financial panel a “fiasco.” He said the commission was ignoring an analysis by Ed Pinto, his colleague at AEI, which placed more blame on the government for encouraging bad mortgage lending practices.
Dow Jones reports that Wallison “acknowledged one of the charges in the report — that he improperly shared with Pinto a critical analysis of his work. But Wallison said that Pinto should have gotten the chance to respond to that analysis and never had an opportunity to speak to the commission.”
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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