... all he did was exercise a little political muscle! Sen. Chuck Schumer today went on another counterattack against federal banking regulators who’ve blamed him for helping cause the failure of IndyMac Bank. At a news conference, the New York Democrat repeated his contention that the bank’s regulator had been "asleep at the switch." He said his public questioning of IndyMac’s financial health...

... Mudd later reported in a presentation that Fannie moved into this market "to maintain relevance" with big customers who wanted to do more business with Fannie, including Countrywide, Lehman Brothers, IndyMac and Washington Mutual. Emphasis mine. Notice anything in common among those four companies? And they were taking their cues from Freddie and Fannie! The documents suggest than Fannie and Freddie...