Former California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Wednesday vaguely acknowledged The Intercept’s report about her declining to prosecute Steven Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank for foreclosure violations in 2013, but offered no explanation.
“It’s a decision my office made,” she said, in response to questions from The Hill shortly after being sworn in as California’s newest U.S. senator.
“We went and we followed the facts and the evidence, and it’s a decision my office made,” Harris said. “We pursued it just like any other case. We go and we take a case wherever the facts lead us.”
Mnuchin is Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Treasury Department, and served as CEO of OneWest from 2009 to 2015. In an internal memo published on Tuesday by The Intercept, prosecutors at the California attorney general’s office said they had found over a thousand violations of foreclosure laws by his bank during that time, and predicted that further investigation would uncover many thousands more.
But the investigation into what the memo called “widespread misconduct” was closed after Harris’s office declined to file a civil enforcement action against the bank.
Harris’s statement on Tuesday doesn’t explain how involved she was with the decision to not prosecute, or why the decision was made. She also would not say whether the revelations would disqualify Mnuchin for the position of treasury secretary. “The hearings will reveal if it’s disqualifying or not, but certainly he has a history that should be critically examined, as do all of the nominees,” Harris told The Hill. She added that she would review the background and history of all Trump cabinet nominees.
Senate Democrats have vowed to put up a fight over Mnuchin — even creating a website inviting homeowners to list their complaints against OneWest. And yet not one senator has commented publicly on the leaked memo, which received media coverage in Politico, Bloomberg, the New York Post, CBS News, Vanity Fair, CNN, CNBC, and other outlets.
The Intercept has reached out to half a dozen Senate Democratic offices, including those of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and leading Mnuchin critics Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, receiving no response.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., retweeted the story, as did the Twitter account of the Democratic National Committee. But another DNC tweet just hours later hinted at the bind Democrats are in when it comes to using the information against Mnuchin. That tweet praised Harris’s swearing-in. Her decision not to prosecute may make her new colleagues wary of pursuing it.
Progressive groups have not been so reluctant. Three groups — the Rootstrikers project at Demand Progress, the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up Campaign, and the California Reinvestment Coalition – have called for a delay of Mnuchin’s confirmation hearing until he publicly discloses all settlements and lawsuits OneWest has faced from its foreclosure-related activities, responds fully to all questions submitted by members of the Senate Finance Committee, and publicly discloses his role in obstructing the California attorney general investigation, or any others.
The California Reinvestment Coalition followed that up on Thursday by asking OneWest to release the obstructed evidence, which involved loan files held by a third party then known as Lender Processing Services (it’s now called Black Knight Financial Services). “That’s something the Senate Finance Committee should ask him for, prior to scheduling their hearing with him,” said Paulina Gonzalez, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition.
Mnuchin has already declined to answer a detailed list of questions from Finance Committee member Sherrod Brown, which Brown sent before the release of the leaked memo.
After The Intercept story was published, Mnuchin spokesperson Barney Keller called it “meritless,” and highlighted OneWest’s completion of a foreclosure review with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (which involved completely separate issues from the California inquiry) and what he claimed was OneWest’s issuance of over 100,000 loan modifications to borrowers.
“Memos like this belong in the garbage, not the news,” Keller said.
Meanwhile, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, an organizing group that made headlines in 2010 by protesting on Mnuchin’s front lawn over OneWest’s foreclosure practices, expressed disbelief that he could now become treasury secretary. “My family lived first hand the fraud and unethical behavior under his leadership when I was told to default before they could help me, and (was) instead pushed into foreclosure,” said Peggy Mears, a OneWest victim.
ACCE plans to ask incoming California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to take up the prosecution of OneWest based on the newly released evidence. And the group vowed to fight the Mnuchin nomination. “No one who oversaw the defrauding of thousands of homeowners should be allowed to serve watch over our country’s money,” Mears said.
Top photo: Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris espouses the same values as most men and other women do – that is, a loyalty to power and class. So, she will do what is good for Kamala (not prosecuting Mnuchin), but not for the people. What is painfully sad is that these are the women who are called “feminist,” a concept they embed in their identity. Kamala’s rhetoric and practices are not different from that of Hillary Clinton, who espouses the same values safeguarded by the patriarchy system. These women do not explore alternative ways. They will not because they are equally corrupt.
It looks like he contributed to her Senate campaign.
If you are going to attend the “Inauguration of Corruption”… make sure when the “Corrupt Elected One” (CEO) takes his oath of office, that ALL fair minded and just people “Turn the Back” to him and throw a shoe in protest!
Spread the Word… FAST!
#BackwardsLove… trend and tweet this NOW!
#TurntheBack… trend and tweet this NOW to ALL your friends, family and even your enemies!
“Our war is not with flesh and blood, but with wicked and demonic spirits in high (office) and holy places!”
Patrick Henry said it BEST… and should be the rallying cry of all “fair minded and just people” of this “GOD forsakened Country!”
“Give me (economic) Liberty… Or give me DEATH!
Or…
“Make me your Economic Slave?… You will DIE trying!”
Revolution has the word LOVE in it spelled backwards (rEVOLution)! Time to give ALL this country’s elites and politicians some “Backwards Love!”
Anarchy and Chaos are the Mother and Father of Freedom!
So say hello to mommy and daddy Crooked and Corrupt American Government…
Stand up for Thyself
…spread the word… because mommy is pregnant… again… and about to deliver!
why is it that the last prosecution of financial institutions comes under a Republican president that is almost 93 years old? why?
It’s the system of “representative” government stupid. The reps. are or become corrupt almost 100% of the time. It has always been thus. We now have the technology for true democracy (what the self serving elites call. the tyranny of the majority as opposed to the manufactured consent engineered to serve our parasitic masters). Elites make dirty words out of things like protectionism and populism etc. The system stinks so bad that a real demagog who would be a populist dictator is just down the road. Putin is so popular because he threw the richest swine in Russia in jail and ended the worst effects of the corporist Yeltsinites. I woud vote for him in a heartbeat or somene “worse”. Some of us productive working class understand how we are being screwed and by whom. Bernie Sanders would have been able to accomplish about as much good as a good Apple would do if thrown in a barrel of rotten ones. The system is incapable of reform and needs to be overthrown with hundreds of thousands of parasites jailed and the banks nationalized as first steps.
“Putin is so popular because he threw the richest swine in Russia in jail…”
Uh, yeah. All the swine but himself.
Corruption doesn’t need representation, it just is.
This is called Regulatory Capture. It’s been going on for far too long. We police poor neighborhoods like an occupying army, and let the criminals on Wall Street write their own rules, which they inevitably break, and then ignore the violation. Fines are levied that represent 1-2% of the fraud perpetrated, and it gets folded into the cost of doing business. It’s as though a robber holds up a 7-11 at gunpoint, clears $1000 in cash, and when caught by law enforcement is forced to pay a $20 fine. That robber will be stopping at every convenience store on the way home from that judgement to stick them up too. There is zero incentive not too.
I don’t think the banksters and their bought and paid for regulators know how much they are hated. It must be cozy in their bubble, but the rage outside will pop it soon.
Liberals gave John Corzine a pass and his crimes are exponentially more serious. John Corzine was a democratic governor and senator. A few weeks before his billion dollar ponze scheme collapsed, he transferred hundreds of millions from customer accounts to cover his speculative losses. He then lied under oath to congress claiming he knew nothing about the transfer. As usual, Obama’s justice department looked the other way.
Moral of the story: Liberals don’t care about Wall Street crooks. They simply attack crooks that don’t support them and sweep under the rug the corrupt deeds of their many friends in the FIRE sector.
Seriously, what does this have anything to do with R or D? Cmon man, it’s freaking terrible no matter what party you are brainwashed by…
How does a supposedly liberal state like California keep electing such right-wing democrats to the Senate?
The terminology you are using is no longer appropriate for describing either branch of the Party. CA is a diverse state, home of the John Birch Society as well as UC/Berkeley. Both the democrats and the republicans promote corporate interests above individual ones, among other common features that do not align with the traditional ideals of either liberalism or conservatism. As recently as 30 years ago, people from the financial community who committed fraud were sent to jail under the leadership of a conservative republican president, with widespread support from liberal democrats. Now, both so-called conservative republicans and so-called liberal democrats are united in their pursuit of policies that favor large international corporations and shield rich contributors from the legal ramifications of their activities.
You sir, are correct.
…but what can any of us in the working class do about it?
If you are going to attend the “Inauguration of Corruption”… make sure when the “Corrupt Elected One” (CEO) takes his oath of office, that ALL fair minded and just people “Turn the Back” to him and “Throw a Shoe” in protest!
Spread the Word… FAST!
#BackwardsLove… in protest! trend and tweet this NOW!
#TurntheBack… in protest! trend and tweet this NOW to ALL your friends, family and even your enemies!
#ThrowtheShoe in protest! In Civil Disobedience!
“Our war is not with flesh and blood, but with wicked and demonic spirits in high (office) and holy places!”
Regards,
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
I think we all know why Harris’s “office” made a decision not to prosecute.
Harris is a neoliberal profits before people plant brought to you by Barbara Boxer…..flush.
so you are blaming Barbara Boxer’s decison to retire for the fact that California elected Kamala?
Kamala is an important up and coming bright star for the party (not to mention Obama calling her hot) and the Dems will circle the wagons for her.
It could get ticklish for her but in the end she will prevail. Warren and Sanders are boxed in sadly.
It’s just politics above all else.
So all this stuff was happening when Obama was president, but none of it mattered until Trump got elected? Now, suddenly, people are “concerned.”
OK.
Well, to be fair a lot of this didn’t come out until 2 or 3 years after the housing crises. Obama nor any President can tell the AG what to do especially if an investigation hasnt taken place yet. Kamela and her office took a year and some change to review and research, but they failed to prosecute. Once word spread that her office was not going to prosecute, her office should’ve been flooded with calls and protestors from the state of CA. The reason this is just now getting national news is because this will affect not only CA but the whole US…it’s no longer local news.
She campaigned I’m sure for working for the little guy (just guessing) but as bad as the state of the housing crises in CA was in 08 and years after the people should’ve held her more accountable.
You are being sarcastic, right? As though the appointments Obama made during his very first days as president did not signal what was going to happen. As though Holder was not Obama’s choice, and as though the two leaders of the financial reform legislation, Dodd and Frank, were not already known as the two leading recipients in their chambers of financial community contributions. I suppose your are a loyal democrat, and thus blind to the excesses committed by your branch of the Party.
Exactly. It was clear from day one of Obama’s administration that there would be no real reform, no prosecution of the criminals who brought so much misery to the world with their fraud because they were (and are) big donors to both branches of the Party. The decision makers on both sides think that’s OK, and now gaze in wonderment at the phenomenon of Donald Trump. Unfortunately Trump is likely to simply add to the list of corrupt practices, but I suspect that millions of people voted for him because they are fed up with the two tiered criminal justice system that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so clearly represent.
“Kamala Harris is corrupt but nobody reads the Bay Guaridan so she will be reelected” Willie Brown known as Californias most corrupt politician at the Common Wealth Club.
Criminally Corrupt Kamala Harris protected criminal cops and rigged the case to lose in court.
Of course as Jimmy Carter publicly said the San Francisco Prosecuters Officek knows where the child prostitution and kidnapped raped kids are but doesnt do anything about it until they need good PR-like the criminally corrupt $10,000 bribe taking San Francisco Mayor Lee who to upturn his and the criminally corrupt cops low approval finally arrested and rescued some kids AFTER we told them we would go public with Jimmy Carters own words.
Willie Brown, Jimmy Carter and the pedophile protecting police and the $10,000 mayor lee bribe are public knowledge-maybe you should look into it and report deeper on Kamala Harris an actual pro criminal cop prosecutor and a pedophile protecting prosecutor.
Dig a little deeper theres more criminal dirt on Kamala Harris!
the Dumb&Dumbers executive leadership need the privileges of protecting wealth thieves who finance their campaigns and provide promotions. It’s a lawyer thing that goes back a couple thousand years.
Mr Comey was taking orders from the D&D executive committee as was Mrs Lynch. It is possible that certain bilderberg persons and rothschilds are on the D&D executive committee. Rule or be ruled, right? That is how selfish and paranoid persons operate. They do not believe in equal and entitled ownership of life support. For them, resources and lives are up for grabs.
Finding an honest top banker is as likely as roping a unicorn blindfolded. Like government, it’s an inherently corrupt racket.
Why Trump chose this particular guy, I have no idea. But except in Iceland, not a single bankster has gone to jail for profiting on vicious financial engineering schemes sure to backfire on trusting borrowers and depositors.
Both major political parties are guilty of enabling this racketeering. Neither party will do anything serious to stop it.
Any bank deemed “too big to fail” should be reduced in size until it is no longer a threat. Ending the FED would at least close the backdoor on secret efforts to rescue institutions which should be allowed to go bankrupt as gracefully as possible when they are disgraced by their own management.
Isle of Man has an interesting structure for failed institutions. My understanding is that to secure a charter to operate in that jurisdiction, every financial institution is bound by law to contribute to whatever cost arises for taking on losses of any other chartered financial institution that fails. The government guarantee comes after that, not before.
The beauty of this method is that it doesn’t matter if government regulators catch someone doing the financial dirty. If an institution fails for any reason, fair or foul, all the others become liable for the cost. As a consequence, financial people there tend to pay very close attention to each others behavior and transactions. It’s something of an auto-regulating mechanism to the extent it takes advantage of human nature rather than trying to defeat it.
Harris arises from Willie Brown’s political machine, not to mention loins, and is as corrupt as they come. With the help of a notorious cheating Republican campaign attorney, she ran against a real progressive for SF DA and won, launching her political career.
Wow you were able to find the one “republican” in San Francisco that worked for senator Harris and THATS HOW she came to power in the democrat party! I didn’t think there was a republican in SF! Trivial drivel… Are you sure the Russians didn’t help her?
So sick of this constant corruption. I wish we could go back to the days when our political & social system wasn’t predicated on the accumulation of wealth; when our leaders didn’t wage war killing innocents; when human beings were respected & protected regardless of their nationality, race, gender, religion, orientation or political beliefs. If only Bernie had been elected…
And when exactly were those days? Please, enlighten us.
And when would that be, pray tell? In the days of hunter-gatherers before agriculture and civilization? Because civilization requires war; you do realize that, right? See http://www.derrickjensen.org/endgame/civilization/
IT BE SARCASM. C’mon ….
Now the banksters know that Harris’ services can be purchased–oh sure, good job Dayen for tipping off the NY families about Harris.
Any competent lawyer could prosecute a criminal case.
So-called “prosecutors” (aka “district attorneys”) rake in the donations precisely for whom they fail to prosecute.
And attorney generals are prosecutors on steroids.
Wait a minute, isn’t this the same Kamala Harris who tried to apply what Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law called a “crazy legal theory” in charges against BackPage executives? She certainly wasn’t a cautious prosecutor in that case. So why such a different treatment of OneWest?
on full display, the structural brokenness of capitalism and the elite capitalists, whom corruptly, unaccountably and fearlessly manage and manipulate, thus nullifying democracy and its societal values…all the while evading, ignoring or changing laws and regulations so as to meet the rapacious needs of a small group of directors and major shareholders.
There needs to be a massive push, a solidarity ground swell (not one of multiple issue or identities), but a movement that presses to change the economic system altogether.
Production’s time has arrived…stand.
How bizarrely appropriate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRUe-gz690
Funny, but for me the words “Black Knight” evoke the image of the Waffen SS. Indeed more appropriate an image for a financial services firm, I would think.
Altetnately, it could conjure such lines as “It’s only a fleshwound”!
So, who in her office made the decision?
Was she involved in the decision?
Why is this non-answer supposed to be sufficient?
Harris has six years of job security… why can’t other Dems question the decision? Is challenging one “mistake” that happened to benefit some of her campaign donors taboo? Seems like party over country to me.
Is the silence from other senators who would normally be raising a stink meant to protect a potentially corrupt fellow senator? Is this part of the “new direction” from Dems we’ve been hearing about?
How is it that Mnuchin declining to answer Brown’s questions is acceptable?
Her “executive committee” of insiders and old friends from her time as San Francisco DA, presumably.
Of course. Nothing of this magnitude could have been decided without the AG signing off on it.
OK, so, no named scapegoats for reporters to question then?
This isn’t a time for “presumably”.
And, if she had to sign off on it, she made the call, not “her office”. That makes her a liar.
Harris is the new anointed one, which is to say that she has all the bad qualities of both Hillary and Obama.
I was suspicious of her immediately when the lapdog media started trumpeting her, CONSTANTLY, as the leading candidate for ‘new young Democratic leadership’. Shockingly, she turns out to be the same sort of friend of plutocrat/oligarch shits as the OLD democratic establishment, which loves big money first and foremost. While people like Tulsi Gabbard, who have the guts to stand on principle over their political career interests are either smeared or ignored. If you toe the line, the sky’s the limit, if you have the guts to stand with the people, as Tulsi has done again and again (supported Bernie, quit the DNC mid-campaign knowing that it would make her many, many Demo enemies, was willing to talk to Trump about the dangers of getting deeply involved in Syria), you are a leper to the establishment. Basically, if the MSM loves someone, it is easy to just assume they are deeply corrupt and yet another part of the problem. Bernie’s campaign, which should have had the ‘liberal’ media cheering, was instead met with sneers and smears, showing what they truly are.
It is not LAW & Politics – – It’s LIES & Politics….and next you will hear Donald Trump say how he won the election fair and square…. it was RIGGED
Thank you for the quick followup, David Dayen.
On KH’s twitter page, fourth post down, she said as a career prosecutor she’s prepared to take on violent criminals, multinational gangs, and bankers – blah-blah-blah.
It was that post to which I asked her this morning why she didn’t go after Mnuchin.
I say great things and I respectfully question bad decisions, but nobody ever responds to my posts.
(I have no presence except when I write to make myself feel better.)
Too bad she can’t pretend to be interested in the environment – sheeeeit.
The face of corruption is ugly. Trump isn’t going to bother with the make-up used by Democrats; he’s Scarface.
This is the ‘Great Again’ of which he speaks.
Still waiting to hear how many of the “100,000 loan mods offered” actually resulted in a sustainable loan modification for the homeowner who was able to keep their home as a result. In other words, offering bad loan mods (that only reduce a payment by $100) that only postpone a foreclosure by a few months, or losing people’s paperwork for those loan mods, or keeping people on trial plans for months on end, should all be subtracted from this lofty number that Mnuchin’s folks are offering.
“Memos like this belong in the garbage, not the news,” Keller said. The garbage is the preferred place for memos that make filth look bad.
And after they reach the destination, they just shut their eyes and pretend they didn’t find “enough” evidence to prosecute.
In this case, they led to Mrs. Harris becoming a Senator. She made the right decision.
Well phrased, Benito.
It also made her sort of dodgy. ;) Love your posts, btw.
Everybody got paid, didn’t they? Mr. Mnuchin knows where the bodies are buried. Does anyone want to dig up the mortgage fraud travesty issue again!? No, so Kamala gets to be senator.
Yes, all those persons who were wrongfully forced from their homes as well as anyone who wants justice to be done related to Wall St. criminals. That would include me. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in feeling that way.