Banking Chairman Senator Chris Dodd Receives VIP Home Equity Loans

If he were a Republican they'd be investigating him right now. Senator Kent Conrad, like Dodd, also received VIP loan treatment from Countrywide Mortgage. Dodd knew since 2003 that he didn't received just an ordinary loan.

From Thehill.com:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said he and his wife knew Countrywide Inc. was treating them as “VIP” customers when they refinanced mortgages on two homes in 2003, but that it did not cross his mind he was getting a financial perk from the sub-prime lender.

Dodd, who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee oversees mortgage lenders, said he did not ask and Countrywide’s representatives did not say what the VIP treatment entailed.

“We knew at the time that we were being dealt with within a special section of the company,” Dodd explained. “We really just assumed it was a courtesy, because we had an existing mortgage with them — two mortgages with them.”