Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac engaged in 'an orgy of junk mortgage development' that turned the two mortgage-finance giants into vast repositories of subprime and similarly risky loans, a former Fannie executive testified on Tuesday.

The mortgage development, which began in 2005 and lasted until at least last year, happened as senior executives at the two government-sponsored enterprises ignored repeated warnings from internal risk officers that they were delving too deeply into dangerous territory, according to internal documents released at a Congressional hearing in Washington. The two companies have been taken over by the government.

The former executive, Edward J. Pinto, who was chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the mortgage giants now guarantee or hold 10.5 million nonprime loans worth $1.6 trillion — one in three of all subprime loans, and nearly two in three of all so-called Alt-A loans, often called “liar loans.”

New York Times