Memo Documents Mnuchin’s Violation of Foreclosure Laws

David Dayen wrote as follows in The Intercept on Jan. 3, under the headline “Treasury Nominee Steve Mnuchin’s Bank Accused of ‘Widespread Misconduct’ in Leaked Memo.” “OneWest Bank, which Donald Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, ran from 2009 to 2015, repeatedly broke California’s foreclosure laws during that period, according to a previously undisclosed 2013 memo from top prosecutors in the state attorney general’s office.

“The memo obtained by The Intercept alleges that OneWest rushed delinquent homeowners out of their homes by violating notice and waiting period statutes, illegally backdated key documents, and effectively gamed foreclosure auctions.” In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct in a year-long investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties. “But Harris’s office, without any explanation, declined to prosecute the case.

“Mnuchin, the former CEO of OneWest, was already facing challenges in his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings on account of his bank’s ruthless foreclosure practices, ranging from locking out one homeowner during a Minneapolis blizzard, to foreclosing on another over a 27-cent payment shortfall….” The complete 22-page memo is here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3250383-OneWest-Package-Memo.html