House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s strong statements in support of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement raise an interesting question: Does she, then, oppose the preferential treatment her son received at the hand of the financial industry?
Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi, Jr., was protected from a round of layoffs when he was a mortgage broker for Countrywide, according to “Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon,” a 2011 book co-authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.
“Paul Pelosi, Jr., the son of Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House, worked as a mortgage broker and sales manager at a Countrywide office in San Mateo, California,” Morgenson and Rosner wrote in the book. “In 2007, when the company was on the ropes and beginning a mass of layoffs, Pelosi’s name was on the list of those to be cut. According to a former executive with knowledge of the situation, [Countrywide CEO Angelo] Mozilo personally removed Pelosi’s name from the list.”
According to Morgenson and Rosner, Countrywide was able to make political alliances with people like Pelosi through favors like this.
“With more than thirty-five thousand employees, it was easy for Mozilo to make a few strategic hires for friends and others in positions to help Countrywide,” they wrote.
Also, according to the Los Angeles Times, Pelosi’s son Paul also got about $1 million in loans for a condo from his politically-connected employer Countrywide.
Pelosi’s son’s special treatment contrasts with the top House Democrat’s support for Occupy Wall Street — a movement that appears to oppose corporate corruption and cronyism.
“Well, I support the message to the establishment — whether it’s Wall Street or the political establishment and the rest — that change has to happen,” Pelosi said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
Pelosi’s office responded to an inquiry by TheDC by pointing to her record in Congress, instead of addressing her son’s apparent special treatment from the banking industry.
“Leader Pelosi spearheaded the passage of the strongest consumer protection legislation since the Great Depression, the Frank-Dodd Wall Street Reform Act,” Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami told The Daily Caller. “Her record is clear.”