Democratic attorneys general snag $1.1 billion slush fund

Published: 1:26 AM 02/21/2012


By Neil Munro

Five big banks have agreed to give twenty-three Democratic attorneys general more than a billion dollars that can be distributed to housing groups and community organizers in the months prior to the 2012 election.

The money is part a deal valued at $25 billion that the five banks announced Feb. 9 with President Barack Obama’s deputies and with a coalition of 50 attorneys general. Ninety percent of the value consists of mortgage write-offs, accounting changes and cash transfers that are to be delivered to homeowners over the next three years.

But $1.1 billion in cash will be transferred to the Democratic attorneys general as soon as the deal is approved by a judge, which is expected to happen in March or April.

The bank deal is also slated to deliver almost $1.4 billion to Republican attorneys general, but many of the GOP attorneys general have already announced they will transfer the funds to state legislatures.

The deal is a government shakedown of bank executives and their shareholders, said Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a law firm that promotes transparency in funding.

By using the courts, the Democrats and their patronage groups have seized money and the ability to favor constituencies that elected legislators in Congress had already denied them, Fitton told The Daily Caller.

“The left is very adept at using the offices of the federal government to keep itself funded, and Republicans are generally oblivious to this,” he said. “Tax dollars shouldn’t be going to interest groups on the left — or the right,” he said.


Read more: Daily Caller