Can the government commit securities fraud?” is one question that is raised by Gretchen Morgenson’s column about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this weekend. Fannie and Freddie seem to be having a cultural moment, with their hedge fund defenders — Perry Capital, Pershing Square and, I guess, Fairholme — being joined by otherwise non-hedge-fundy types…

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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were left for dead after the government seized the mortgage giants in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis. Their stock tanked, and many shareholders fled. Now the companies are flying high again, having cranked out more than $200 billion in profits, most of it in the past two years, as…

The investor Bruce R. Berkowitz is providing seed money for a new group that is running advertisements in newspapers and on television to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance companies that lawmakers are trying to wind down. Mr. Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Management mutual fund, which is an investor in both Fannie…

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Consumer activist Ralph Nader and a free-market group whose funders include billionaires Charles and David Koch are part of a growing crowd urging the Senate to preserve value for investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “As the housing-finance reform debate heats up on Capitol Hill, it is of the utmost importance that the voices of shareholders — which…

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