Fannie Mae Execs Get a Pass

Unlike other public companies that get skewered (and even imprisoned) for huge compensation plans and/or accounting issues, the WSJ points out that Fannie Mae still retains its preferential treatment status. Over the weekend, federal regulators settled with Fannie Mae execs who cooked the books to fatten their comp packages got off pretty much scott free.

The upshot is that former CEO Franklin Raines will forfeit some underwater stock options, make a donation to charity and pay $2 million to the government, although that last sum will be covered by Fannie's officers-and-directors insurance. The lawyer for former CFO Timothy Howard called it a "capitulation" by the government, and it's hard to disagree.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, all top brass at Fannie, were all prominent Democrats that worked in former administrations.