Beg Your Pardon
Tis the season for presidential pardons, and as the Bush administration winds down, the North Dakota Republican Party is asking the White House for a pardon of John Korsmo, the former chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board.The state party has been working on the pardon request for about two months, the Associated Press reported last week.
Mr. Korsmo resigned from the Finance Board in March 2004 and later pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. He told the Senate Banking Committee that he did not know how organizers of a $500-a-plate dinner supporting a Republican congressional candidate obtained personal information about Federal Home Loan bank presidents. But he later acknowledged that his wife had provided the information to the organizers.
He was sentenced in 2005 to 18 months of unsupervised probation and fined $5,000.
Gary Emineth, the state party's chairman, did not return a call to explain why he is seeking the pardon. Mr. Korsmo told a North Dakota radio station that he was gratified by the pardon effort but was not involved in it.
Seidman on Board
The Treasury Department has abandoned its plan to buy toxic assets, but a private company has taken up the task, and a familiar face is helping.SecondMarket Inc., which is trying to revive trading in mortgage-backed securities and related structured products, has turned to L. William Seidman for guidance.
The former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman was the first head of the Resolution Trust Corp., the agency created during the savings and loan crisis to help process $400 billion of thrift assets nobody wanted.
SecondMarket said Mr. Seidman is now a director and will be advising the company on its plans to "rapidly expand into new asset classes, including mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations."
He began working with SecondMarket a week ago and said a market for the illiquid assets could be up and running early next year. It will not be as big as the one that could have been created under the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, but Mr. Seidman said its goal is similar.
SecondMarket is working from a list of around 2,000 companies to pair sellers with potential buyers.
"I wouldn't say that it's big enough to be an alternative to Tarp," Mr. Seidman said. "But it is trying to do the same thing, and it is using the private market to get a market going for these illiquid assets."
Hawke Honored
Former Comptroller of the Currency John Hawke has received the Richard Peterson Award for his accomplishments in banking law.The executive council of the Federal Bar Association's Banking Law Committee said it gave Mr. Hawke the annual award for his expertise and prominence in the field.
"No other lawyer has had such a diverse and illustrious career in banking law as Jerry Hawke," the committee said in announcing the award in a press release. "He is a legend among banking lawyers."
Mr. Hawke, who currently heads the banking law practice at Arnold & Porter LLP, was the comptroller from 1998 to 2004. Before that he had been a Treasury undersecretary of domestic finance and general counsel for the Federal Reserve Board.
He said in an interview that he was "deeply honored" to receive the award. "This comes from a group of real Washington financial experts, a lot of former general counsels, counsels of trade associations, and people on the Hill. It's a very knowledgeable group, which makes the award more meaningful."
The award is named after Richard Peterson, a former litigator for the American Bankers Association. It is given to people with a substantial length of service in financial services policy, an active involvement in landmark development of banking policy, and high personal qualities.
Going Private
Jenn Fogel-Bublick has stepped down as a counsel to the Senate Banking Committee to join McBee Strategic Consulting LLC as an executive vice president.At the Banking Committee, Ms. Fogel-Bublick handled such issues as housing, mortgages, insurance, and the financial bailout legislation.
In her new role, she will help bulk up the firm's financial services portfolio and will be monitoring regulatory restructuring efforts.
