Date: 2016-02-04
Speaker: MAXINE WATERS (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again. my friends on the opposite side of the aisle will talk about guns. They will talk about Choke Point. They will talk about unfairness to businesses based on a banks ability to close accounts. They will talk about everything except the real point of this legislation. I dont know why. I dont know where it came from. and I dont know who can convince a serious public policymaker that somehow you are to take away the investigative power of the Justice Department. a Justice Department that has proven that it could use FIRREAthat is the Financial Institutions Reform. Recovery. and Enforcement Actto investigate banks that are guilty of fraud. I dont know where this would come from. Given what we have gone through in this country. starting in 2008. I dont know why any serious public policymaker would want to do that. What have we witnessed in this country. based on the predatory practices of banks? We have seen whole communities devastated. We have seen foreclosures and people lose their homes. We have seen homes underwater. We have increased homelessness. We have seen the targeting of some of the most vulnerable communities in our country. based on the fraudulent practices of banks. The Justice Department has a tool. and they are using this tool. Why would any credible Member of Congress want to take away the Justice Departments ability to investigate and to fine these institutions? No. ladies and gentlemen. this is not about Choke Point. This is not about guns. This is not about any of that other stuff that they are trying to make you believe you should pay attention to. Every legislator and every public policymaker should ask themselves: Do I want to be a part of ever allowing this institution to once again revert back to the practices that caused people to lose their homes. that threw this country into a recession. that still has us reeling from the negative impacts of those decisions by a bank? Why would anybody want to take away the Justice Departments investigative powers? In addition to that. this bill will not even allow the Justice Department to exercise its authority to subpoena. Why do you want to do that? It doesnt make good sense. Again. you can talk about Choke Point all night long. You can describe it as being unfair to businesses. you can talk about what we need to do. but that is not what this is about. I know why you dont want to talk about it because you have got to be ashamed of it. You have got to be ashamed of the fact that you are leading this institution to do away with investigative powers of the Justice Department. Let me just say this. The Department of Justice has relied heavily on the powers granted under FIRREA to pursue billions of dollars of mortgage fraud cases since the financial crisis. In these cases. financial firms defrauded the government by knowingly selling faulty mortgages while representing them as high quality. Without FIRREA. investigations would have stalled and taxpayers would have been left on the hook for even more losses. FIRREA powers were also instrumental in securing the historic $25 billion mortgage servicing settlement. As many of our colleagues know. there are still many more problems in the mortgage servicing industry. and eliminating this tool would encourage fraudulent practices by mortgage services that end up wrongfully kicking Americans out of their homes. I reserve the balance of my time.