NYT reports Rick Davis paid by Freddie Mac

The New York Times ran a front page article today confirming that a firm owned by John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was given $15,000 a month by the mortgage giant Freddie Mac from 2005 until a month ago when it taken over by the government. This news comes a day after McCain's senior campaign adviser slammed the Times for reporting on Monday that Davis "had been paid nearly $2 million by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac to head a group devoted to defend the mortgage giants against the imposition of stricter regulations." It also contradicts a claim made by McCain in an interview that took place on Sunday, in which he stated that Davis has had "nothing to do" with them:

HARWOOD: You mentioned cronyism and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington, and you've criticized Obama for self dealing here. How do you square that with the fact that your campaign manager, Rick Davis, was involved in some lobbying activities on behalf of Fannie Mae? And secondly, what specifically would you prevent, would you outlaw--what activity would you outlaw in Wall Street to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Sen. McCAIN: Now, on Wall Street, I'd--obviously we need to stop--we need to more--have more transparency. We need to take the regulatory agencies and merge them together in one effective agency. These regulatory agencies, this alphabet soup, was really designed for a different era. We're now in global transactions. We need more transparency. We need to combine the regulatory agencies, and we need to give them some more authority, if necessary, to do so. You know, Secretary Paulson had a package of recommendations sometime ago that basically did not really go anywhere. Maybe we can look at those and other recommendations in the future.

In Washington, I still think that it was the special interest money that went--and Fannie and Freddie money that went, and everybody was involved in this--not everybody, but certainly Senator Obama got next amount of money, except for the two Democratic chairman. His vice presidential search team was headed by Mr. Johnson, and...

HARWOOD: And your campaign manager?

Sen. McCAIN: And my campaign manager has stopped that, has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.

Davis' connection to Freddie Mac is almost laughably ironic when one considers that the McCain camp recently released a video attempting to link Obama to the economic crisis, claiming that Obama has received advice from the former CEO of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines. The ad claims that Raines gave Obama "advice on mortgage and housing policy." Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed "extensive financial fraud." Raines immediately denied providing advice to the Obama campaign, and campaign a spokesman denied seeking or receiving any advice from Raines. A fact checker for the Washington Post reported that the only evidence substantiating the claim was that Raines had "a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign" and that the McCain campaign "is clearly exaggerating wildly". It's yet another example of the misleading distortions put out the campaign, which is now using dishonest tactics to protect its own members and attack Obama, all while reaching new levels of hypocrisy. How low will they go to put McCain in office?