Well, it’s about time. Truly this administration has charted a bizarre path with regard to the big banks. One day Wall Street and the White House are buddies. The next day the banks are portrayed as villains. It’s been an odd tango of money, power, and domestic realpolitik.
Very Chicago.
From IBD
In an Aug. 27 editorial, “Holder Cut Left-Wing Groups In On $17 Bil BofA Deal,” we revealed that Holder’s record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America included potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in set-asides for “a national network of left-wing community organizers.”
Instead of going to so-called victims of the so-called fraud, Holder steered huge sums to affordable-housing activist groups approved by HUD, which is mired in a separate lobbying corruption scandal, including:
• La Raza, which pressures banks to qualify more low-income Latino immigrants for home loans.
• National Community Reinvestment Coalition, Washington’s most aggressive lobbyist for the disastrous Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
• Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, whose director calls himself a “bank terrorist.”
• Operation Hope, a South Central Los Angeles group pressuring banks to make “dignity mortgages” for deadbeats.
• Mutual Housing Association of New York, or MHANY, a spinoff of an Acorn housing unit.READ MORE