On September 19, 2011, the Boston Globe reported:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has long been critical of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming the government-backed housing lenders for inducing the home-mortgage crisis and saying they have become too unwieldy.
“I look at Fannie and Freddie and just think that obviously they’ve grown massively beyond the scope that had been envisioned for them originally,” he said two weeks ago at a forum in South Carolina. “The failures of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd are just so legion that we have to rethink about how we’re going to support a growing housing industry.”
Yet Romney has profited from investments that were made in both government entities, according to his personal finance disclosure forms and documents compiled by American Bridge, one of several Democratic groups in Washington formed to back the election campaigns of Obama and other Democrats.
The issue illustrates the potential perils for a candidate with vast financial holdings whose rhetoric does not necessarily match his investment interests.
“Once again, Mitt Romney has proven his hypocrisy knows no limits,” said Ty Matsdorf, spokesman for American Bridge, which was formed earlier this year and has been going through the records of President Obama’s potential opponents. “To continually attack the housing crisis, yet invest up to a half a million dollars in the major players is absolutely mind boggling. I didn’t know a person could flip flop on themselves, but Romney has proven that wrong.”
[…]
Romney made the investment in a mutual fund called the Government Obligation Fund, managed by Federated Investors Inc. The fund invests in a wide variety of sources, including government agencies and US Treasury notes. But out of a $28.5 billion portfolio, nearly half of the fund was in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Federal Home Loan Bank notes, according to an SEC filing made in April.
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Published: Sep 19, 2011