There's been a lot of sniping about New York AG Eric Schneiderman's refusal to go along with Iowa AG Tom Miller in his attempt to construct a "deal" with Bank of America in the robosigning–mortgage fraud scandal. (I put "deal" in quotes because some have called it a "whitewash" instead — more here.)
For example, just this morning, Miller and others got a nice opportunity from the Washington Post to whine their hearts out (Matt's good coverage of that is here).
And the Obama administration has sided squarely with Miller & the banks against Schneiderman, perhaps because banks are where the money is, and Obama's got a brand new $1 billion ad campaign to finance.
So it's useful to be reminded of this, Matt Taibbi at his prognosticative best, writing way back in April (is it really September?) about Tom Miller and his "special relationship" with those banks he's brokering a deal with (sorry, "investigating"). Taibbi's italics, my bolding and re-paragraphing below.
Best Way to Raise Campaign Money? Investigate BanksAnd that's how it works. Tom Miller's a made man. Taibbi in April. (If you want to drill down, the underlying numbers are here.)
A hilarious report has come out courtesy of the National Institute of Money in State Politics, showing that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller – who is coordinating the investigation into the banks’ improper mortgage dealings – increased his campaign contributions from the finance sector this year by a factor of 88!
He has raised $261,445 from finance, insurance and real estate contributors since he announced that he was going to be coordinating the investigation into improper foreclosure practices. That is 88 times as much as they gave him not over last year, but over the previous decade.
This is about as perfect an example of how American politics works as you’ll ever see. This foreclosure issue is a monstrous story that is somehow escaping national headlines [that was April; no longer]; essentially, all of the largest banks in the country have been engaged in an ongoing fraud and tax evasion scheme that among other things has resulted in many hundreds of billions in investor losses, and hundreds of thousands of improper foreclosures. ...
Put it this way. If the banks had to pay what they actually owed – from the registration taxes/fees they avoided by using the electronic registry system MERS to the money taken from investors in toxic mortgage-backed securities to the fees and payments stolen from homeowners via predatory loan practices and illegal foreclosures – they would probably all go out of business. That’s how much money is at stake here: the very future of financial giants like Bank of America and Citi and JP Morgan Chase is hanging to a very significant degree on the decisions of politicians like Miller.
Hence the sudden avalanche of money sent Miller’s way. The numbers are laughable. In 2006, out-of-state donors gave Miller’s campaign $10,508. For the 2010 cycle, that number was $497,357. Three lawyers by themselves – Al Gore’s attorney David Boies, plus Donald Flexner and Robert Silver, all partners in the firm Boies, Schiller and Flexner – gave Miller a total of $60,000.
Guess who Boies’ firm defended last year, in a suit brought by an Australian hedge fund that claims it was ripped off in a deal involving toxic mortgage-backed CDOs? That’s right: Goldman, Sachs.
Schneiderman and others are working to kill that deal. And for their efforts, Obama surrogates take him on, and the Washington Post helpfully muddies the waters.
Re-read Matt's piece, then ask yourself: Isn't justice usually the goal of an Attorney General. It is on my TV.
UPDATE: And now MoveOn has taken Schneiderman's side. So much for under the radar.
GP
