Obama Sued Citibank in 1995 Mortgage Discrimination Case: Of 186 Obama Client Homeowners Only 19 Still Own Homes – Multiple Bankruptcies

Obama actually did have a private sector job, and he failed at that too. He filed a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 186 clients claiming discrimination in home mortgages. Nineteen of the 186 still own a home and have a good credit rating – 19 of 186! Some of his clients are speaking out and their message: there should be a regulation against giving loans to people who can’t afford them! Obama pushed the Community Reinvestment Act, right along with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Maxine Waters. Democrats forced banks to give mortgages to Blacks who had no credit rating, no down payment, sometimes no job. The Bush administration tried 17 times to force Democrats to moderate the risks of these through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The first thing to know is that 71% of the bad loans were Government loans, not Wall Street. From one of my previous articles on the housing crisis:

[In a news conference, Obama] said this: (paraphrased) People got housing loans that they did not understand that they could not afford. They were told they could afford them. They didn’t understand the paperwork they were signing. What a crock. The Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to lend without credit, without down payments, without any assurance that the buyers could meet their monthly payments. He is a bold, blatant liar.

Flashback to 2000:

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation’s banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The Daily Caller, snippets from page 1:

The startling failure rate among Obama’s private sector clients was discovered during The Daily Caller’s review of previously unpublished court information from the lawsuit that a young Obama helmed as the lead plaintiff’s attorney. [RELATED: Learn about the 186 class action plaintiffs]

Since the mortgage bubble burst, some of his former clients are calling for a policy reversal.

“If you see some people don’t make enough money to afford the mortgage, why would you give them a loan?” asked Obama client John Buchanan. “There should be some type of regulation against giving people loans they can’t afford.”…

The campaign was powered by progressives’ moral claim that their expertise could boost home ownership among the United States’ most disadvantaged minority, African-Americans. [RELATED: Obama's African-American clients got coupons, not cash]

Progressive activists’ ambition instead contributed greatly to a housing bubble that burst in 2007, crashed the nation’s economy in 2008, wiped out at least $4 trillion in equity, kept unemployment above 8 percent for four years, and damaged the intended beneficiaries of looser mortgage lending standards.

The article is about 6 pages long. Look at this.

While the settlement provided $950,000 for the lawyers, it provided $20,000 for each of the three named plaintiffs, and $360,000 in benefits to be divided among the 183 other clients.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported in 1998 that Obama claimed $23,000 in billable hours for his role in the lawsuit. That role was limited, partly because he was networking his way toward his 1996 election to the Illinois Senate. But he stayed with the firm until 2004, and it was his lawsuit.

Obama also won massive campaign donations from the mortgage industry, including at least $126,349 between 1989 and 2004.

He sought public credit for the lawsuit: His employer submitted a docket to the court that listed him as the lead attorney for two of the three named plaintiffs in the case. The docket bound Obama’s name to the lawsuit — and to the 186 clients who would soon follow.

How the bullying brought down the economy:

To meet their anti-redlining promises, executives ditched their caution. Street-level officers soon began offering loans to people with little chance of repaying, including many of Obama’s eventual clients.

Banks were “financing people who had no jobs. … [T]he pendulum swung the other way,” Renee Brooks, an accountant and one of the three named plaintiffs, told TheDC.

“They didn’t check out certain people, and they got loans and they couldn’t afford them in the first place,” Juanita Malone, another Obama client, told TheDC. “I think that really was, to me … not professional.”

In the late 1990s “money became available to everybody … everybody and their brother-in-law,” said Freeman. “Individuals who get money easily and who don’t have a good background and or a good education would expect to suffer the consequences.”

Their judgment is shared by Mark Zandi, an Obama supporter and the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Too-easy credit and millions of bad loans made during the U.S. housing crisis paved the way for the financial calamity and [the] Great Recession that followed,” he wrote in an Aug. 25 column for the Washington Post.

At least 46 of Obama’s clients claimed bankruptcy – sometimes multiple times, says the Daily Caller and the numbers are actually higher. It took years to shake this out:

 2009 wasn’t an aberration: Obama’s client list had averaged 5.3 foreclosure notices a year during the 1990s.

More is expected this year and into 2013.

Everyday we hear how many mortgages are under water:

Each client’s wealth losses have been shared with other Americans through declining neighborhood-wide property values.

In Marcella Wilson’s neighborhood, nearby home values have dropped, she said, because “crooks [in banks] were giving people money they couldn’t afford.”

“My neighborhood is so-so.” she said. “Fifty years ago, when we moved in, it was a very lovely place.”

Seventeen of Obama’s clients lived in her 60619 ZIP code.

I encourage you to read the Daily Caller piece. Many of Obama’s private sector clients are quoted there. The Jawa Report has much more.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Citibank, Government Housing Loans, Housing Bubble, Housing Crisis, Illinois, Lawsuits, Lawyers, Mortgage Crisis, SubPrime Mortgages, Wall Street