Reply #45: Bank of America Lawyer, Consultant Gave Foreclosure Probe Chief $15,000

[Demeter]

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 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 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...

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/21/bank-of-america-lawyer-consultant-gave-foreclosure-probe-chief-15000/#ixzz1KdEALWCz