Perhaps a little from column A and a little from column B:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

The Obama campaign has talked about how McCain surrounds himself with lobbyists while posturing to be against the “special interests,” but this takes it to a new level.

Freddie Mac paid Rick Davis’s firm $15,000 a month for more than 30 months (that’s $180,000 a year for nearly three years) for doing no work other than staying close to McCain.

McCain either doesn’t know what’s going on in his inner circle or brazenly lied to the press. How can we trust him to run the country?

Speaking of McCain, after the jump I’ve posted a new viral e-mail that’s going around with the subject line, “You owe $2,293.53 dollars to Wall Street Fat Cats… check, cash or charge?”

The e-mail discusses how McCain and his adviser, former Senator Phil Gramm, voted to deregulate the banking industry, which led to the current stock market meltdown. Click here to read two alternative versions of the e-mail, playing on the same concept. Pass it on!