Obama's Choice of Insider Draws Fire

But Johnson is not the only member of Obama's vice presidential vetting committee that Republicans have targeted.

They also are preparing a case against former deputy attorney general Eric Holder for his role in the granting of a pardon to fugitive financier Marc Rich in the last days of the Clinton White House.

In December 2000, as Rich's lawyers were closing in on the pardon, one of them, Jack Quinn, singled out Holder in an e-mail. "The greatest danger lies with the lawyers," Quinn wrote his co-counsels. "I have worked them hard and I am hopeful that E. Holder will be helpful to us."

Any attacks on Holder will probably not mention that one of Rich's lawyers, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, went on to become Vice President Cheney's chief of staff.

Other prominent Washington supporters of Obama present their own problems. Gregory B. Craig, for example, a senior Obama foreign policy adviser, represented Juan Miguel Gonzalez in 2000, as Gonzalez was trying to bring his son Elian back to Cuba. The incident still rankles the Cuban community in Florida, a pivotal state in the presidential election.

For now, it is Johnson who provides the most immediate fodder for attack. His lavish lifestyle, multiple homes, personal staff and chauffeur strike a dissonant chord as Obama excoriates Republican "tax cuts for the rich" and calls McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, an out-of-touch Washington insider.

Although OFHEO said Johnson benefited from the earnings manipulations, the agency did not accuse him of participating in them, and the SEC did not accuse him of any wrongdoing. He ended his term as chairman and chief executive of the District-based company in December 1998, before Fannie Mae reported its financial results for that year. In 1999, he served as chairman of the company's executive committee.

A federal regulatory agency suggested that even if Johnson's compensation for 1998 were entirely justified, Fannie Mae obscured its magnitude, disclosing pay of $6 million to $7 million a year in 1998. But Johnson was allowed to defer 111,623 shares of Fannie Mae stock, a move that was relegated to a footnote and not included in the company's summary compensation table.

Total compensation that year was closer to $21 million, according to an internal Fannie Mae analysis cited by OFHEO.

Anticipating questions about the agreement in 2004, Fannie Mae even drafted question-and-answer talking points, including: "Gimme a break. He's hiding his compensation."

Among Johnson's post-employment perks were an inflation-adjusted consulting contract of $390,500 that began in 2002, two employees and a chauffeur, and office space at the Watergate, even after he began work at Perseus, an investment firm that gave him his own office. His lawyer described that compensation yesterday as "consistent with what is customarily provided to retiring Fortune 100 CEOs."

Johnson was supposed to reimburse the company for 50 percent of the chauffeur's time, but that did not apply to time spent waiting for Johnson or driving his wife. Consequently, he reimbursed Fannie for about 15 percent of the cost.

On March 17, 2005, as Fannie Mae was engulfed in accounting scandal, Johnson contacted board chairman Stephen B. Ashley and said, "I should do my part to assist Fannie Mae's efforts to reduce expenditures at this difficult time."

His part was temporarily reducing his consulting fees, which had increased to $600,000 a year and an end to his support staff and driver.