HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A new appraisal more than doubles the value of U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd's Irish cottage, a vacation home that is the subject of an ethics complaint by a conservative group that questions if it was really a gift. The property is valued at 470,000 euros, or about $660,000, on a financial disclosure report provided to The Associated Press on Friday by Dodd's office. The previous year's report valued the seaside home, located in County Galway, at between $100,001 and $250,000.
Dodd spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said the Connecticut senator and his wife decided to have the property appraised because they felt it was time to update the information for Dodd's financial disclosure report to the Senate. "The value of the cottage — or of Irish real estate, generally — isn't something that the Dodds have thought much about," DeAngelis said in a statement. "However, questions have been raised and they recognize that it's important to make a good faith effort at valuation for the Senate financial disclosures."
A conservative government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, filed an ethics complaint against Dodd in April, questioning whether the price Dodd originally paid for the cottage amounted to a gift from businessman Edward "Bucky" Kessinger. Kessinger is chairman of Kessinger/Hunter and Co., a commercial real estate firm in Kansas City. He did not immediately return a message seeking comment. DeAngelis described him as a longtime friend of Dodd's.
Dodd and Kessinger bought the cottage in 1994 for $160,000, with Dodd contributing $12,000 for one-third of the downpayment. The Dodds bought out Kessinger in 2002 and refinanced the mortgage, paying Kessinger $122,000 plus $5,000 in closing costs. They also paid off Kessinger's $50,000 share of the remaining mortgage.
A two-page appraisal, written by an Irish real estate agent, describes how the 12.5-acre property is located on "mountain type land" and includes a partially renovated cottage, "old roofed outsheds, including donkey house, chicken roost and greenhouse." It describes the house as "very basic" and "cold, windy and draughty." "It is just suitable as a summer house," the appraiser wrote. He also mentions "shoddy workmanship," but says it has "excellent views over sea and moorland." The appraisal notes the Irish real estate market is slow and the property would need to be put up for sale to get a fair idea of its true value.
The questions about the sweetheart deal were raised by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch back in April:
Judicial Watch’s complaint alleges that Senator Dodd appeared at a hearing on behalf of Edward Downe, Jr. in 1993 to help Downe obtain a reduced sentence for violations involving tax and securities laws. In 2001, Dodd ultimately helped Downe secure a full presidential pardon for his crimes on President Clinton’s last day in office bypassing the normal pardon vetting process. In 2002, Dodd allegedly received a significantly reduced, below-market sales price, for a two-thirds interest in a property located in County Galway, Ireland, from Downe’s associate, William Kessinger. (Dodd already owned a one-third interest in the property.) Downe’s signature appears on the property transfer documents. He is listed as a witness.
(Judicial Watch has sought additional documents about this property from government authorities in Ireland.) According to the complaint, Senator Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, allegedly failed to report the gift in 2002 and may have filed inaccurate Senate Financial Disclosure forms related to the property ever since, in violation of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. The penalty for filing false financial disclosure forms is $50,000 and up to one year in prison.
“This seems a straight-up quid pro quo. Dodd helped his apparently crooked friend and seems to have received a cut-rate real estate deal on a property in Ireland in exchange. Moreover, it appears Dodd attempted to cover up the gift by failing to disclose it on his financial disclosure forms. To put it mildly, this type of behavior clearly does not reflect well on the United States Senate. We hope the Senate Ethics Committee does a thorough and speedy investigation. Federal prosecutors also need to take a look at this, as knowingly filing false financial forms is a crime,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. In 2008, Senator Dodd came under fire for receiving preferential loan terms from Countrywide Financial as a member of the company’s “VIP Program.”
AIG Chiefs Pressed To Donate To Dodd
The message in the Nov. 17, 2006, e-mail from Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, was unmistakable: Mr. Dodd was "next in line" to be chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the insurance industry, and he would "have the opportunity to set the committee''s agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.
"Given his seniority in the Senate, he will also play a key role in the Democratic Majority''s leadership," Mr. Cassano wrote in the message, obtained by The Washington Times. Mr. Dodd''s campaign quickly hit pay dirt, collecting more than $160,000 from employees and their spouses at the AIG Financial Products division (AIG-FP) in Wilton, Conn., in the days before he took over as the committee chairman in January 2007. Months later, the senator transferred the donations to jump-start his 2008 presidential bid, which later failed.
Now, two years later, Mr. Dodd has emerged as a central figure in the government''s decision to let executives at the now-failing AIG collect more than $218 million in bonuses, according to the Connecticut attorney general -- even as the company was receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). He acknowledged that he slipped a provision into legislation in February that authorized the bonuses, but said the Treasury Department asked him to do it.
The decision has generated national outrage and put the Obama administration into the position of trying to collect the bonuses after they were distributed. It also endangers Mr. Dodd''s re-election chances in 2010 as his popularity tumbles in his home state.
Despite all the claims that Washington has changed, the tale of Mr. Dodd''s lucrative political ties to AIG is a fresh reminder that special interests continue to use donations and fundraising to sow good will with powerful lawmakers like Mr. Dodd.
"The message seems clear: The boss says I want you to support the senator," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which studies political fundraising and ethics. "And I think the employees got the message."
Representatives for Mr. Dodd did not answer specific questions about AIG''s fundraising, but spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said in a statement: "Senator Dodd''s fundraising has always been above board, transparent and in accordance with campaign finance rules. "As he said [earlier this month], contributions received from any individual who accepted these bonuses from AIG last week will be donated to charity. And last fall, he made the decision to no longer accept contributions from [political action committees] of companies receiving TARP money."
Officials at AIG-FP in Wilton referred inquiries to the firm''s New York headquarters, where spokesman Mark Herr said he had been on the job only three weeks and had no information about the e-mail or the campaign contributions to Mr. Dodd. Mr. Cassano''s Washington attorney, F. Joseph Warin, did not return messages left on his voice mail or e-mail.
Mr. Dodd''s plight also signals that the actions taken by lawmakers after they receive big political donations are being scrutinized by an increasingly distrustful public. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found Mr. Dodd lagging 43 percent to 42 percent behind former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican who plans to challenge Mr. Dodd, in a hypothetical race.
"The concern and the question is whether AIG was purchasing kid-glove treatment from their home state senator -- from the senator chairing the committee charged with overseeing their industry," Ms. Krumholz said. Political opponents already are using Mr. Dodd''s financial ties to AIG and his role in the bonuses to weaken his political standing heading into re-election.
AIG''s employees have been big financial backers of Mr. Dodd. Over his career, Mr. Dodd has collected $238,418 from AIG employees and their spouses, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Cassano has donated $7,118 to Mr. Dodd''s campaigns. Mr. Cassano''s November 2006 e-mail instructed his colleagues on how to make donations to the senator from Connecticut.
"As he considers running for president in 2008, Senator Dodd has asked us for our support with his reelection campaign and we have offered to be supportive," Mr. Cassano wrote.
The employees were told, "If you agree," to write checks for $2,100 from themselves and their spouses and to send them to Mr. Dodd''s campaign within four days. They also were to ask the senior members of their management teams to do the same and send copies of their checks to the company. The Dodd campaign collected $162,100 from AIG-FP employees and their spouses within six weeks of the e-mail, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission. Each of the seven AIG-FP executives to whom the Cassano e-mail was sent made two $2,100 contributions to the Dodd campaign -- one for the primary and another for the general election campaign. The records also show that five of their wives also contributed $4,200 each to the Dodd campaign. The executive vice presidents are Alan Frost, David Ackert, Douglas L. Poling, Jake DeSantis, Jon Liebergall, Robert Leary and William Kolbert. Mr. Cassano, who resigned in February after AIG-FP posted losses of $11 billion, followed his own advice. He and his wife gave Mr. Dodd''s campaign $4,200 each.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group (AIG: 1.23, -0.36, -22.64%) bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax. While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.
Dodd’s original amendment did not include that exemption, and the Connecticut Senator denied inserting the provision. “I can't point a finger at someone who was responsible for putting those dates in,” Dodd told FOX. “I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back, it did.” “Because of negotiations with the Treasury Department and the bill Conferees, several modifications were made,” Dodd Spokesperson Kate Szostak in a response to FOX Business.
The provision excluding those bonus payments made it into the final version of the bill, and is law. Separately, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org. Also, one of AIG Financial Products’ largest offices is based in Connecticut. “Senator Dodd was completely unaware of these AIG bonuses until he learned of them in the past few days,” wrote Szostak. To suggest that the bonuses affecting AIG had any effect on Senator Dodd’s action is categorically false.”
Dodd Amendment Rules
After having been accused of taking part in a special VIP program with the lender -- now owned by Bank of America -- he has steadily insisted that he received no special treatement because of his Senate status. But though he had promised to release documentation last year, he had then said he would postpone doing so until the Senate ethics panel had a chance to review the accusations against him. Then, he apparently changed his mind again.
Dodd said again today, "There was nothing special about the rates, fees, or points. We were never offered special or sweetheart deals and if anyone had made such an offer, we would have severed that relationship immediately."
Dodd released more than 100 pages of documents, which he said were also provided to the ethics committee. "These are all the documents that Jackie and I used and relied upon when we negotiated the refinancings of our mortgage loans including the home equity loan."
Countrywide Fiasco • Releases documents, but fails to admit his error in judgment
Seven months after a magazine article disclosed that Sen. Christopher Dodd was among several high-profile federal officials who got loans on favorable terms from now-failed mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp., he has sought to set the record straight. It was a disappointing performance.On Monday, Connecticut's senior senator and his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, held a press conference at which they released documents related to the refinancing of the couple's Washington and East Haddam homes. They also made a detailed defense against claims they got special treatment.The couple announced that they're going to refinance both homes, this time through a third party, "to try and insulate ourselves against an accusation that we're trying to get some special deal." Mr. Dodd also apologized to the people of Connecticut for not releasing the documents sooner.Yet he doesn't admit that accepting the loans was an error in judgment. Instead, he seems to be apologizing for political miscalculations.
Dodd received two 30-year loans from Countrywide Financial Corp., whose chairman and chief executive officer, Angelo Mozilo, has testified in front of Congress about problems in the subprime crisis.
Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who is currently the chairman of the Senate banking committee, was designated as a "Friend of Angelo,'' along with former Cabinet member Donna Shalala and other high-profile Washington insiders.
"I'm no clairvoyant. There was no red flag to me that we were getting some special treatment."
-Senator Christopher Dodd
Poor Chris Dodd can't catch a break this year. Connecticut's senior senator, after an underwhelming presidential campaign - in which voters kept confusing him with Joe Biden, that other highly qualified Northeastern senator no one would vote for - has suddenly found himself in hot water over, of all things, the mortgage on his home.
Two weeks ago, the Banking Committee chairman was busy introducing a $300 billion rescue package for the subprime mortgage industry and its victims when news broke that Countywide Financial - subprime's
With 8,000 US families facing foreclosure daily, the $200 per month Dodd's been saving doesn't sound so small - and Mozilo's own toxic reputation, especially after he admitted pocketing $142 million last year just as Countrywide started sinking like the Titanic, hasn't helped.
