Barney Frank Admits Using Clout for Fannie Mae Job

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is embroiled in controversy again. He acknowledged to the Boston Herald Wednesday that he assisted his ex-lover in obtaining a plumb job at Fannie Mae in the early 1990s.

Barney Frank

During that time Frank was a junior member on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversaw the government’s mortgage market titan.

However, Frank doesn’t see any ethical problems with his action. Calling it a potential conflict of interest is “nonsense,” he said.

“If it is [a conflict of interest] then much of Washington is involved” in conflicts, Frank said.

“It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Not everyone buys Frank’s reasoning.

“Just when you think you’ve heard the worst, Democrats in Massachusetts take shameless politics to a new low,” Tory Mazzola, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told the Herald.