Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad are being investigated by the Senate ethics committee for their involvement in a special mortgage program from Countrywide Financial. As the Washington Post reports today, Dodd told reporters at a news conference yesterday that he was unaware that certain fees were waved for him that most customers must pay to receive lower rates when refinancing a home.

"I don't know that we did anything wrong," Dodd said at the press conference, per the Post. "I negotiated a mortgage at a prevailing rate, a competitive rate. ... I did what I was supposed to do."

Dodd was a senior member of the Banking committee at the time the mortgage was negotiated, according to the Post. He now chairs the committee, which oversees the mortgage industry. Conrad chairs the Budget committee and is the third-ranking Democrat on the Finance committee.

Portfolio Magazine first uncovered the two senators' special-treatment mortgage loans in a June 12 article. The story detailed the senators' placement in Countrywide's "V.I.P." program while refinancing multiple homes in 2003 and 2004.

Dodd said yesterday that he knew he was part of the V.I.P. program for homes he owned in Washington, D.C. and East Haddam, Connecticut, but continued to deny that he was aware of any wrongdoing. According to Politico, "Conrad, for his part, seemed more geared toward making a mea culpa for any appearance of preferential treatment," announcing he was donating the $10,700 he reportedly saved on refinancing his beach house on the Delaware coast to Habitat for Humanity and that he had paid off the mortgage on an apartment complex in his home state.

Republicans are having fun with what they call a scandal. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey penned an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal arguing against a proposal Dodd and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank have made to provide $300 billion in new taxpayer loan guarantees, and Freedom's Watch, a conservative independent organization dedicated to promoting the GOP agenda, has sent out several releases blasting the pair.

A complaint was filed Friday with the Senate ethics committee by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Senator Barbara Boxer, the ethics committee chair, said, "A complaint has been filed and we are, as we always do, looking at that," according to the Post.

-- Kyle Trygstad