Public Comment

In the past several years, the United States’ largest banks, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, have paid billions of dollars to settle charges of financial crimes in the mortgage market in the years preceding the 2008 housing crisis. Top regulators claimed that the record fines extracted in these settlements would provide relief to homeowners struggling with their mortgages. 

In an exhaustive investigation conducted by the Wall Street Journal has exposed a massive fraud perpetrated by the federal government. Nearly half of the $110 billion Wall Street Banks paid in settlement fines in recent years has been pocketed by the federal government and withheld from the rightful owners – homeowners. There has been no disclosure how the nearly $50 billion has been spent.