This is interesting. In December, 2011, the month before signing on to the mortgage fraud settlement, the entity charged with electing Republican Attorneys General called the Republican State Leadership Committee collected a bunch of large checks from big banks.

As this IRS disclosure form shows, on December 19, 2011, it received a $10,000 donation from Wells Fargo. On December 30, 2011, JP Morgan Chase PAC made a $15,000 donation to the committee.

But the biggest donation came from Citigroup, On December 9, 2011, the committee received one donation of $30,000 from Citigroup Management and another for $50,000. This brought Citi’s total giving for the year to $188,597.

In March, 2011, the Republican Attorney Generals were adamantly opposed to any settlement that asked the banks to write down mortgages or offered assistance to borrowers that was unrelated to foreclosure related problems. They cited “moral hazard” as a significant problem, because they didn’t want a settlement that “rewards those who simply choose not to pay their mortgage” with principal write-down problems.

This month, these same Republican Attorney Generals signed onto a settlement that did just that.

As I said, this is interesting.

Filed Under Lobbying 

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