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Freddie Mac paid lobbyists $11.7 million

WASHINGTON — From a hefty lobbying budget to the use of free baseball tickets, Freddie Mac fended off any meaningful regulation in the years before the housing mortgage giant crashed, records obtained by the Associated Press show.

When the Washington Nationals played their first baseball game in the nation's capital in April 2005, two congressmen who oversaw Freddie Mac had choice seats — courtesy of the very company they were supposed to be keeping an eye on.

Efforts to tighten government regulation were gaining support on Capitol Hill, and Freddie Mac was fighting back.

According to internal Freddie Mac documents obtained by the AP, Reps. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., spent the evening in hard-to-obtain seats near the Nationals dugout with Freddie Mac executive Hollis McLoughlin and four of Freddie Mac's in-house lobbyists. The two congressmen were both members of the House Financial Services Committee.

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