Lead AG In 50-State AG Probe Into Robosigning, Foreclosure Fraud Scored Big Bucks From Lawyers Representing Big Banks

TIME Magazine reports:

• Iowa’s Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller is known for taking on big business. Elected to eight four-year terms, he led a multi-state anti-trust case against Microsoft in 2001 and filed a suit against 79 drug companies in 2007, alleging they illegally profited by inflating prices for drugs purchased through Medicaid.
• Most recently, Miller took the lead on the investigation by all 50 state attorneys general into the “robo-signing” foreclosure scandal, where several big banks allegedly approved taking away people’s homes without adequately verifying the facts in court, as required by law in some states.
• Last fall, just after he made the announcement that he would look into the foreclosure mess, contributions to Miller’s campaign coffers for November’s election soared, thanks in large part to out-of-state lawyers who make a living representing big banks, a new report from the National Institute for Money in State Politics finds.
• “Nearly half of the money Miller raised in 2010,” NIMSP reports, “was donated after the October 13 announcement that he would be coordinating the 50-state attorneys general investigation.”
• Two Miller contributors have become directly involved in defending the banks in the probe. One, Meyer Koplow(1) of Wachtell Lipton in New York, gave Miller $5,000 and is representing Bank of America in direct negotiations with Miller, the attorney general tells TIME.
• Another, Elizabeth McCaul(2) of Promontory Financial Group, gave Miller $10,000 and is consulting Bank of America in the negotiations, Miller says. Bank of America was one of the first and most prominent institutions accused in the foreclosure investigation. It gave more than $80,000 to the Democratic Attorney Generals Association, which spent more than $200,000 on Miller’s campaign, Miller says.

***

• Neither McCaul nor Koplow would comment for this story.

For more, see Bank of America Lawyer, Consultant Gave Foreclosure Probe Chief $15,000.

For Miller's response, see Iowa AG slams report on campaign contributions.

(1) According to the new National Institute for Money in State Politics report, Koplow is most famous for negotiating Philip Morris’ $206 billion class action settlement with state attorneys general in 1998. See also, “Why is This Guy Smiling?,”American Lawyer, January/Feburary 2011, accessed April 24, 2011.

(2) Acording to the new report, McCaul is the former Superintendent of Banks for the State of New York Banking Department, the regulatory agency that oversees the banking industry in New York State, including Wall Street firms.