They lied.

They lied.

They lied.

Let’s repeat that one more time:

They lied:

Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation’s largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony.

Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn’t know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment.

Dodd got two Countrywide mortgages in 2003, refinancing his home in Connecticut and another residence in Washington. Conrad’s two Countrywide mortgages in 2004 were for a beach house in Delaware and an eight-unit apartment building in Bismarck in his home state of North Dakota.

Robert Feinberg, who worked in the Countrywide’s VIP section, told congressional investigators last month that the two senators were made aware that “who you know is basically how you’re coming in here.”

The last chapter of Culture of Corruption highlights President Obama’s embrace of corruptocrat Chris Dodd as a shining symbol of the Hope and Change farce. He endorsed Dodd’s 2010 re-election bid earlier this year by praising the Connecticut Democrat’s “extraordinary record of accomplishment.”

But Dodd’s career epitomizes the most fetid aspects of Washington’s culture of corruption. It’s a textbook case of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, entrenched incumbency, and hypocrisy.

Everything you need to know about the befouling of the Beltway swamp can be found in the rise and fall of Chris Dodd—and in Barack Obama’s affirmation of his “extraordinary record of accomplishment.”

Read all about it.