From Newsweek:
Last week, though, McCain's trust in Davis was tested again amid disclosures that Freddie Mac, the troubled mortgage giant that was recently placed under federal conservatorship, paid his campaign manager's firm $15,000 a month between 2006 and August 2008. As the mortgage crisis has escalated, almost any association with Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae has become politically toxic. But the payments to Davis's firm, Davis Manafort, are especially problematic because he requested the consulting retainer in 2006—and then did barely any work for the fees, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement who asked not to be identified discussing Freddie Mac business. Aside from attending a few breakfasts and a political-action-committee meeting with Democratic strategist Paul Begala (another Freddie consultant), Davis did "zero" for the housing firm, one of the sources said. Freddie Mac also had no dealings with the lobbying firm beyond paying monthly invoices—but it agreed to the arrangement because of Davis's close relationship with McCain, the source said, which led top executives to conclude "you couldn't say no."hilzoy responds:
Here's a question: did Rick Davis tell John McCain about his arrangement with Freddie Mac before last week? If not, then I would expect Davis to be fired within days: you just don't keep information like that from your boss and expect to keep your job. But if Davis did tell McCain, then when McCain approved his ad slamming Obama for supposedly having an advisor who had been the chairman of Fannie Mae -- though both he and the Obama campaign deny that he advised them, and his connection to Obama would have been tenuous in any case -- McCain knew that his own campaign manager had been retained by Freddie Mac until it was taken over by the government. That would be dishonorable, though not, unfortunately, surprising.
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