From a commenter:

Conrad claims that he called this Jim Johnson guy who then put him in touch with Countrywide.  In his oped, Conrad goes further and says he talked to Mozilo directly only because he just happened to be in the room with Johnson when Conrad called him.

Yet when the local TV reporter asks Conrad why he didn’t just go with a lendor in North Dakota, Conrad’s answer makes no sense.

He says something like, ‘Well, that’s a good question.  The reason is I had just refinanced the Bethany(?) property, and they had all my financial records, so it was just easier that way.’

So if Countrywide had just worked with him on another refinancing and they had his financial information, why would he not call Countrywide directly instead of calling Jim Johnson?

Good question.

Here’s the link to the video that’s mentioned.