Just in Time To Undercut Eric Schneiderman, the (Ongoing) HUD Investigation!
American Banker has an article suggesting that Tom Miller will be able to use the results of HUD’s investigations into servicing problems to craft a settlement with the banks.
But by all appearances, this is an attempt on the part of IA Attorney General Tom Miller to undercut claims that the Attorneys General need to do more investigation. The article–which relies almost entirely on Miller’s own staff–concludes that this report will “fill in a major gap” in what the Attorneys General know (that is, real data about how bad the robo-signing problem is).
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has completed an investigation begun last year of foreclosure robo-signing and given state officials the results, a spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller says.
A full government investigation would fill in a major gap in state officials’ information as they negotiate with the servicers: the attorneys general have not known the full scope of the banks’ robo-signing practices, or how many homeowners have been affected by their paperwork lapses.
[snip]
“One of our federal partners, HUD, has conducted a thorough investigation of robo-signing,” says Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for Miller. “HUD has shared that investigation with our executive committee.”
The states and their “federal partners,” including HUD, “have the information we need concerning the banks’ robo-signing activities, and this is key to the strength of our understanding and our negotiating position,” he says. [my emphasis]
There’s something funny about Tom Miller’s flack’s claims that the HUD investigation fills in what the Attorneys General didn’t already have: the one thing that HUD would say about it is that it wasn’t finished.
A HUD spokesman would not discuss any investigation, except to say its probes into robo-signing are ongoing. [my emphasis]
Maybe the claim HUD’s probe is complete is just a mis-paraphrase of Greenwood’s comments; such a claim doesn’t show up in his direct quotes. But if the investigation is not done–and HUD says it’s ongoing–then how does the incomplete study give the AGs what they need?
In any case, I find it particularly neat that the AGs’ Executive Committee got this incomplete complete study after Eric Schneiderman got booted from it.
“HUD is a sewer by Catherine Austin Fitts (2006)
Have these two successive paragraphs anything whatsoever to do with one another?
I gather that we’re meant to think so, but the tactic where contingency is implied between disjunct statements is rather a specialty of the shop that puts these things out these days, I’ve noticed.
“A full government investigation would fill in a major gap in state officials’ information as they negotiate with the servicers: the attorneys general have not known the full scope of the banks’ robo-signing practices, or how many homeowners have been affected by their paperwork lapses. ”
Am I meant to believe that 50/49/48/47/whatever it is today/ AG’s lack the necessary investigative power to fill major gaps in their information?
This is Miller’s staff trying to get ahead of the putrid fact that any negotiation-in-the-public-interest would have STARTED with this knowledge, not tried to bumrush a settlement through before it even became public information.
“But if the investigation is not done–and HUD says it’s ongoing–then how does the incomplete study give the AGs what they need?”
Miller does not want to burden the State AGs with too many facts. They might start asking embarrassing questions.
Anyone else have a sense of deja vu? As with some investigations of Yoo and others by the DOJ? I guess the difference is that the DOJ crippled their investigations so severely (by limiting their scope) that they were sure nothing would be found to prosecute.
So, is Miller going to pretend next that the investigations were in fact limited in scope so the state AGs don’t need any more facts?
Bob in AZ
If properly done, HUD’s investigation would demonstrate how much more probable criminal and fraudulent behavior there is to investigate, which in all likelihood would reveal substantial personal and corporate liability under securities disclosure rules, too.
If done the way the faux stress tests were done, it will be a wilted fig leaf not quite covering the real problems it means to hide.
@prostratedragon: It was a Bu$hco staple, especially during the Iraq runup. It’s why they claim now with the straight face that they never said Iraq had WMDs, and other things like that.
Assuming that the case actually goes forward, is this one of those things where there is a first phase, where guilt (or not) is established, and then a second phase, where penalties are assessed if the accused party is guilty? Assuming we get to a penalty phase, who would make that determination?
I am assuming that the penalty phase is distinct, because the news announcements so far have not mentioned a $ figure.
Bob in AZ
Even if Miller’s press release via interview was somehow accurate, it serves as a gigantic admission of incompetence and/or collusion. This AG claims to have been on the case for nearly 4 years and still needs gaps to be filled regarding the extent and consequences of robosigning?! Every competent consumer lawyer in the country knows the extent of this fraud but somehow the leader of this AG group doesn’t…