A GOP member of the FCIC based his dissent on a series of lies. When they were exposed, he offered up a new lie.
As noted earlier, and highlighted by Mike Konczal and Salon, Peter Wallison's spirited dissent to the report by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was based on the dubious research of Ed Pinto, his colleague at the American Enterprise Institute. The dissent was predicated on a series of lies, including the claim that:
Pinto's memos were never made available to the other members of the FCIC, or even to the commissioners who were members of the subcommittee charged with considering the role of housing policy in the financial crisis.
That takes a lot of chutzpah, because the FCIC report on page 219 states that Pinto's memos were sent to all the members of the FCIC. FCIC Chair Phil Angleides testified Wallison himself forwarded Pinto's memos to other members of the Commission.
So I wrote that, "Pinto's research was made available to all members of the FCIC." Then Wallison backtracked a bit. "As far as I can tell," he told The American Spectator, "this was never done by the staff or the Commission's chair, although over time I tried to make sure that the other Commission members were at least aware of some of the material Pinto had furnished to the Commission."
Wallison's latest story is refuted by the record. Pinto’s research was highlighted in open hearings held by the FCIC on February 27, 2010, when Dwight Jaffee, Wallison’s colleague at the Koch-funded Mercatus Institute, offered his prepared testimony and powerpoint presentation. As Jaffee testified:
A lot of the data here has also been accumulated by Ed Pinto, who I suspect is here somewhere, who's associated with the American Enterprise Institute, and I refer to some of his data and what he's basically done is taken advantage of the Fannie and Freddie data that are now available so we know exactly what they're -- they're holding in terms of risk, and he's extended it to a wider universe.
Check out the citation to Pinto's work on page 7 of the Powerpoint presentation, and the active hyperlinks, on page 22 of Jaffee's prepared testimony.
Take a cursory examination of Wallison's FCIC dissent, and you'll soon discover that there are lies within lies within lies. Here's one example. Pinto is virtually alone in labeling any loan to a borrower with a FICO score below 660 as "subprime." Pinto's labeling scheme is essential to his claim that Fannie and Freddie were major subprime lenders. So Wallison, in his FCIC dissent, came up with a new lie, in order to lend Pinto's "research" a veneer a legitimacy. He writes:
[A] FICO credit score of less than 660 is generally regarded as a subprime loan, no matter how originated. That is the standard, for example, used by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The opposite is true. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which has not changed its definition since 2001, states that a below-660 FICO score is simply one of many factors that may be considered in ascertaining whether is loan is deemed subprime.
The thing about professional liars like Peter Wallison is that they never stop. They keep going because they are on a mission, which is to poison the well of collective knowledge, and to pervert history. They keep going because Big Lie tactics work. Look at Jerome Corsi, whose book, Where's the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President, is No. 6 on The New York Times bestseller list. A recent poll showed that only 26% of Republican Iowans were sure that Obama was born in the United States. And plenty of mainstream media outlets continue to promote the lie that the FCIC did not examine, much less refute, the bogus research of Ed Pinto.
See earlier diaries:
Why Isn't FCIC Commissioner Peter Wallison Facing Criminal Prosecution After He Lied To Congress?
Barney Frank Exposed The Lies Behind An FCIC Dissent, So Patrick McHenry Smeared the Truthteller
The "Curveball" Expert Behind The GOP's Phony Narrative On The Mortgage Crisis