As usual, the Trump administration’s proposed annual budget appears to be dead on arrival. It simply steps on too many legislative toes. Among the issues the budget will face is how Congress reacts to its treatment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Last month, a pair of watchdog organizations asked the inspectors general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Department of the Treasury to investigate whether media leaks by officials at FHFA or the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were part of an insider trading scheme.

The general consensus was that Mark Calabria would be easily confirmed as FHFA director. So it came as somewhat of a surprise when his nomination passed out of the committee last week on a 13- to-12, straight party-line vote.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: Rumors of HARP’s death have been greatly exaggerated. At least that’s the finding of a recent report by structured finance analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch who looked the impact similar programs will have on the GSEs’ credit-risk transfer programs.

Mel Watt violated ethics rules as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency by attempting to “coerce” a senior manager into a relationship by suggesting he could help her in getting an executive post, according to a just-released report from the agency’s inspector general.

In his testimony before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs last week, Mark Calabria, President Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, reinforced expectations that, as director, he would begin the long-awaited recapitalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The White House last week named John Roscoe as the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s chief of staff, effective Feb. 4.

In a joint letter sent late last month, Maxine Waters, D-CA, chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Sherrod Brown, D-OH, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, raised serious questions about the legitimacy of Joseph Otting’s recent designation as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Mark Calabria, the White House nominee to be the next permanent director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will get a hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, Feb. 14. The SBC released the hearing schedule for Calabria and other nominees late Thursday.

In an about-face, the Federal Housing Finance Agency told the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals that it will no longer defend the constitutionality of its single-director leadership structureunderthe Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which created the FHFA.