CRP tracks beneficiaries of belly-up banks

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Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have been doing yeoman’s work compiling lists of the politicians who’ve received the most money over the years from political action committees and employees and their family members of the big financial colossi that are seeking (or having imposed on them) federal help to stave off collapse. Their Lehman Brothers list is here while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are “>here.

To see who in Congress invested in these operations, CRP has compiled an analysis of Freddie and Fannie holdings here; you can also dig into search results for Lehman Brothers here (Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., seems to top the list with between $100,001 and $250,000 invested).

It will be very interesting to look at who’s been selling Fannie, Freddie and Lehmans and when. Members of Congress must disclose transactions, and it will be interesting to see if members were dumping their stock ahead of the various announcements of takeovers and bankruptcies. Sadly, we won’t see that data until June 2009.

Incidentally, the Washington Post has a good account of how Fannie Mae’s insider politicos played Congress like a fiddle, and Will Evans of the Center for Investigative Reporting points to a very handy list of who those insider politicos were.