Barney Frank used his influence while sitting on a committee that regulated Fannie Mae to get his lover a well paid job there

Barney Frank doesn't think that this is a very big deal. Just because congressmen have spouses that work in government doesn't mean that they were sitting on the oversight committees of the agencies that hired those spouses. Nor does it mean that they used their influence to get their spouse hired. From the Boston Herald.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank admitted he helped his ex-lover land a lucrative post with Fannie Mae in the early 1990s while the Newton Democrat was on a committee that regulated the lending giant — but he called questions of a potential ethical conflict “nonsense.”

“If it is (a conflict of interest), then much of Washington is involved (in conflicts),” Frank told the Herald last night. “It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Frank said he helped his former longtime companion, Herb Moses, land a job at Fannie Mae in 1991 after Moses graduated with a master’s degree in business administration from Dartmouth College. Frank said he was approached by a Fannie Mae executive and vouched for Moses, who formerly worked as an economist in the Department of Agriculture. . . .