Mortgage finance behemoth Freddie Mac, now under government control due to massive investment losses, has hired Covington and Burling attorneys to conduct an internal investigation of a $2 million lobbying campaign that was undertaken by Freddie Mac itself, according to the Associated Press. Read story here.

The attorneys have been questioning current and former employees for more than a month about a lobbying effort that helped quash new regulations aimed at the company, before the housing market collapsed. The investigation comes not long after the AP reported that Freddie Mac secretly hired Republican consulting firm DCI Group of Washington to stop a proposal in the Senate in 2005 sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., that would have spurred massive changes in the portfolios held by the company as well as Fannie Mae.

                                                                                                              -- Julie Kosterlitz