No Sweetheart Deals For Big Banks

By Robert L. Borosage, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

Robbie Conal

Bankers who committed bank fraud deserve to be prosecuted and sent to jail. Enforcement of the law is vital to deter such behavior in the future.

Some of America's best state attorneys general are trying do just that —trying to get justice for Americans hurt by what the FBI called an "epidemic of fraud" by America's banks and mortgage lenders that contributed to widespread economic devastation in the U.S.

Amazingly, officials in the Obama Administration are encouraging a deal which could insulate bankers who broke the law from investigation or prosecution. Officials in the Justice and Treasury Departments have been urging the states to support this sweetheart deal.

• Bankers would be given a free pass for criminal behavior.
• The truth about Wall Street's crimes would remain hidden from the public forever.
• Executives could once again pass the cost of their actions onto others, while "neither admitting nor denying" that they had broken the law.

Please act now. Sign the petition to President Obama: Don't let banks off the hook for illegal practices that led to the housing crisis. Kill the deal and launch a federal investigation now.

Join us in calling on President Obama to withdraw support for this sweetheart deal and begin a nationwide criminal investigation into allegations of fraud by the country's major banks and financial institutions.

More than 11 million borrowers are currently "underwater" and owe more than their house is worth. Millions have already lost their homes, and many of these borrowers are victims of fraudulent banking malpractice— from the peddling of loans with hidden costs, to imposing punitive and unjustified fines and fees to foreclosures undertaken without establishing proper ownership of the mortgage.

Bankers should not be allowed to walk away from the economic havoc they wreaked upon the country. They should be held accountable, so that no one on Wall Street even thinks about playing roulette with people's lives again.