Surprise! Bank of America "Significantly Hampered" Federal Investigations

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Ah, the banksters just never quit giving us fuel for our fires, do they? In today's news, we have this gem, courtesy of the Huffington Post:

The bank withheld key documents and data, prevented investigators from interviewing bank employees or asking certain questions, and was slow to provide information, according to a June 1 declaration by William W. Nixon, a fraud examiner and assistant regional inspector general for audit for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general's office.

Due to Bank of America's "reluctance," Nixon resorted to asking the Justice Department to issue so-called civil investigative demands last December to compel testimony, a "less effective" means of carrying out its investigation, Nixon said. His office can't compel testimony on its own.

Bank of America, the largest handler of home loans in the U.S., threw up roadblocks to the investigation, Nixon said, like preventing his team from performing a "walkthrough" of the bank's documents unit.

The bank also failed to fully comply with subpoenas issued by Nixon's team. HUD's internal watchdog issued two subpoenas requesting documents and information, and what was returned was incomplete, had conflicting information, and in some cases, the bank provided excerpts of documents rather than the complete record.

Here's an example of what they were looking for:

Federal investigators found one bank employee who signed more than 75,000 foreclosure documents over the two-year period. If the employee worked every day during those two years, that amounts to about 103 documents signed per day, or one every five minutes.

The next time you hear someone blaming Fannie and Freddie for the mortgage meltdown, please supply this article to them and ask them what part they think Bank of America and its acquired puppet Countrywide played in the whole stinking mess.
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