Aaron Glantz's new book, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall St. Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions of Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream is generally horrible for Trump's inner circle. Amy Goodman: "Aaron Glantz reveals how the 2008 housing crisis decimated millions of Americans' family wealth but enriched President Donald Trump's inner circle, including Trump cabinet Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, Trump's longtime friend and confidant Tom Barrack and billionaire Republican donor Steve Schwarzman." In short, crooks from the Trumpland Swamp-- the aforemented Mnuchin, Ross, Schwarzman and Barrack-- took advantage of a rigged system to transfer billions of dollars from individual homeowners into their own pockets during the Great Recession. None are in prison and none have been charged for their grand scale crimes. But one of them was almost charged and could have easily been serving prison time now... instead as Trump's crooked Treasury Secretary helping Trump violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution every day of the week.

But, as reported yesterday, Glantz also reveals Kamala Harris' sordid and disgraceful role in this mess. He wrote that "Harris not only allowed Steve Mnuchin’s OneWest bank to get away with foreclosing on tens of thousands of state homeowners, but then tried to bury the evidence."

"Consumers wonder how is it that we all got so far behind" and so many Americans lost their homes in the Great Recession, Glantz-- a two-time Peabody Award winning journalist with California-based Reveal and the Center for Investigative Reporting-- said Monday in an interview.





“The answer is all of these officials screwed up and dropped the ball-- and hid it. The time period when all this homewrecking occurred was during the Obama presidency, and when AG’s like Kamala Harris were on the job," he said. "It happened on her watch. And she’s never been really forced to tell the other story-- and wrestle with the truth of what happened."





In California, Mnuchin-- now the Treasury secretary-- acquired regional banks like OneWest with the federal government’s help; the banks got billions in subsidies as they foreclosed on 35,000 homeowners in the Golden State alone, Glantz reports. Harris did little to stop that bleeding-- and later tried to suppress evidence of her inaction, he argues.





"Harris’ deputies recommended that their boss sue the bank," Glantz said, citing the bank’s loss-share agreement with the FDIC, which stated that Mnuchin’s bank could only receive payments from the government if it followed proper foreclosure procedures. "If the state of California found OneWest violated those rules, the payments could stop-- saving not only homeowners... but government coffers as well."





"[But] despite a strong recommendation from her staff," Harris never legally pursued Mnuchin’s OneWest bank, he says. "As a result, no one at OneWest faced prosecution-- and no one got their homes back."





...Earlier this year, Harris told the San Francisco Chronicle that she "didn’t have the legal ability," because "the rules were written in favor of the banks"-- an argument Glantz reports was disputed in a 25-page memo produced by Harris’ own staff. "Case NOT filed despite strong recommendations," reads a cover sheet atop the memo, Glantz writes.













He said the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force Harris launched does get credit for taking action, but mostly went after "small potatoes" offenders. On bigger fish, however, her staff "did investigate OneWest, and did recommend prosecution-- but she did bury their report and declined to launch a prosecution," he said. "That happened."



