Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
The NYT has a fascinating story about the $75,000 house that led to the GMAC deposition on robosigning that finally alerted the world to the extent of the fraud behind foreclosures. It’s worth reading for the description of Thomas Cox, a lawyer who volunteers at legal assistance to make right for his years of doing […]
Elizabeth Warren, presumably laying the foundation for an Administration deal with banks to not unwind the entire securitization paperwork problem in exchange for loan modifications, points to banks’ voluntary foreclosure moratoria as proof the banksters are trying to solve this problem (presumably meaning the foreclosure fraud, but not the larger problems). She additionally stated that […]
The UndieBomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had his first day in court since he decided to represent himself today. The outcome of the day was to schedule another pre-trial hearing on January 12. The only drama of the day pertained to whether Abdulmutallab would grant his standby counsel, Anthony Chambers, access to discovery. Abdulmutallab stated he […]
The Treasury Department gave Felix Salmon’s response to Crusader against Injustice Timmeh Geithner’s statement on foreclosures more attention than it gave mine–they emailed a response to Salmon’s questions about why foreclosures would hurt property values. And their response is even more telling than Crusader against Injustice Timmeh Geithner’s original statement. First, at least 40 % […]
In addition to dropping MERS today, JP Morgan Chase had an earnings call at which Jamie Dimon was asked questions about JPMC’s foreclosure fraud. Calculated Risk has a transcription (both the AP and WSJ attribute these comments to Dimon, though CFO Douglas Braunstein made comments about the foreclosure fraud as well). But I just wanted […]
This is just an observation. As of current reporting, Alabama’s Attorney General Troy King is the only state AG not to join in the joint investigation of foreclosure fraud. Even Michigan AG Mike Cox, whose spokesperson said investigating foreclosure fraud would amount to “politicizing the struggles of Michigan families,” has joined the investigation. I find […]
When I asked yesterday about the relationship between the stress tests and the servicers’ foreclosure fraud, I had a hunch that the banksters might have been committing that fraud so as to be able to show financial viability so as to be able to repay TARP funds so as to escape the oversight of the […]
What a load of crap: Charlie Rose: You’re encouraging banks to declare a moratorium on foreclosures? Tim Geithner: No, I wouldn’t say it that way. I think that you know what you’re seeing in housing still now is a national tragedy, still very, very difficult. You know, again, this was a crisis caused by a […]
John Cole asks a bunch of questions about what a foreclosure moratorium would accomplish. I just don’t understand what good would come from a national moratorium. Forty state AG’s are on the ball, what exactly could a national moratorium do? The idea is to stop the bad foreclosures, not grind every single transaction in this […]
The other day, I noted that Administration claims that they were helpless to affect what they now depict as loan servicers’ “sloppiness” but what really amounts to fraud ignores their decision to stop pushing for cramdown–and with it, leverage over the loan servicers. I think (though I’m less sure of this) they’re ignoring one other […]