Million$ In Political Payoff$ Passed Around In Effort To Paralyze Probe Into Banksters' Polluted Foreclosure Paperwork

The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News reports:

• As the financial markets roil, one of the critical factors weighing down the U.S. economy is the flood of home foreclosures. Thursday's crash underscores how difficult it will be for the economy to make significant strides while the housing market is still in tatters.



• The pace of the housing market recovery may depend in part on the outcome of intense negotiations underway among state and federal authorities and the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers.



• Government officials are negotiating with the firms — Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co. and Ally Financial Inc. — over allegations of widespread abuses in the foreclosure process. State attorneys general around the country have been investigating evidence that the big banks used falsified documentation to process foreclosures.



• Four of the five companies under scrutiny—Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — are major donors for state and federal political campaigns. Between them, they have donated at least $8 million since the start of 2009 to candidates, party committees and other political action committees, according to an iWatch News analysis of campaign finance data.

For more, see As housing crisis festers, mortgage servicers spend $8 million on political contributions.