Obama's Chief of Staff Pick a Freddie Mac Alum - Will Media Notice?

Rep. Rahm Emanuel held paid position on troubled GSE's board from 2000-2002, when Freddie Mac was accused of accounting and campaign finance irregularities.

(Business & Media Institute) - He’s President-elect Barack Obama’s new chief of staff, according to various Nov. 6 media reports, but Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., also has some baggage pertaining to the financial crisis. Will anyone in the media take note?

Emanuel, who was a senior adviser for former President Bill Clinton throughout the 1990s, was appointed to the board of Freddie Mac upon his departure from the Clinton administration.

“Clinton’s going-away gift to Emanuel was a seat on the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac board, which paid him $231,655 in director’s fees in 2001 and $31,060 in 2000,” Lynn Sweet wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times on Jan. 3, 2002.