"While Freddie was, in anyone's book, a contributor to the great financial crisis that still afflicts us"
Actually, Freddie didn't contribute so much. The issue emerged from the sub-prime lending market, in which Freddie made a relatively small contribution.
The banks were making the sub-prime loans and securitising them through their investment arms, using the ratings agencies to turn sub-prime into AAA along the way. No big role for Freddie in that process.
The blame-Freddie thesis is a rather famous example of Republican statistical trickery to avoid blaming market forces. But it was banks and their alchemist trick in turning sub-prime coal into AAA gold which was the heart of the problem. That is what ruined the global financial system.
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