Phone Calls Add to Din Over Loans

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The discovery that Countrywide Financial Corp. recorded phone conversations with borrowers in a controversial mortgage program that included public officials — and that those recordings have been destroyed — has prompted new congressional calls for more information about the program.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is trying to subpoena the remaining records of Countrywide’s VIP loan program. So far, the committee’s chairman, New York Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns, has turned down that request.

The committee’s Republican staff investigators have spent months looking into the VIP program, and learned of the call-recording system from a former Countrywide employee in June, according to a spokesman for Issa. The Issa spokesman said that earlier this month Bank of America Corp., which purchased Countrywide in July 2008, confirmed the existence of the recording system, but said all the VIP program-related calls had been disposed of.



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