Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac FIRE Their Own Inspector General

Don't want people to know how screwed up your are? Well, just fire your inspector general:

There is no independent auditor overseeing the federal agency responsible for some $6 trillion in home mortgages, because the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the agency's inspector general didn't have authority to operate, according to internal memos obtained by the Huffington Post.

The ruling came in response to a request from the Federal Housing Finance Agency itself -- which means that a federal agency essentially succeeded in getting rid of its own inspector general.

The FHFA is home to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, which are jointly responsible for purchasing or guaranteeing more than 80 percent of new mortgages issued since the middle of 2008, according to FHFA numbers.

In September, the Department of Justice ruled that FHFA Inspector General Ed Kelley did not have authority to investigate wrongdoing or other abuses related to the agency, according to an internal DOJ Office of Legal Counsel memo signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel Koffsky.

Need we say more? Well, yes of course. Just today we discover more efforts to re-inflate the housing bubble is costing taxpayers.

$6 trillion in mortgages. $6 trillion!

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