From last night’s Countdown:

OLBERMANN: Speaking of Obama and advisors, there’s another aspect of the McCain plan today. McCain has a new ad out claiming Obama has an economic advisor named Frank Raines. And that under Frank Raines’ leadership, Fannie Mae committed extensive fraud, and it collapsed, and Frank Raines made millions. The problem being that the Obama campaign has said tonight, “Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything ever,” that’s the quote, and Frank Raines said, “I am not an advisor to Barack Obama nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matter.” What on earth happened there? FINEMAN: Well, what happened is-not much. Based on what I’ve been told, Frank Raines did pay a visit to Barack Obama’s Senate office a couple I’m not sure exactly when but really before the campaign geared up big time, is my understanding and he didn’t meet with Obama.Frankly, Frank Raines is a kind of radioactive character around here because he was heavily criticized by independent investigators who looked at what happened to Fannie Mae. And you know, he’s not the prince of Fannie Mae that you want to necessarily be in a photo-op with.So, Obama’s a pretty shrewd politician. I think Raines has probably given some contributions both to the Senate race and maybe the presidential one. But he’s not counted in the inner circle. This came about because of a “Washington Post” story but the Obama people are telling me is that it was Raines himself who, at the time, identified him that way. Now, he’s got this statement out tonight.But I know the campaign well enough to know that Raines has never been in the inner circle of the Obama campaign.

So, Raines is an adviser to Team Obama, just not in the inner circle.