The Justice Department's bank settlement slush fund

George Will quotes Federalist Society directors Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz and Boyden Gray in his Washington Post op-ed  on the Justice Department's recent settlements against Bank of America and how the payment is being handled:

The Justice Department has negotiated “bank settlement agreements” whereby banks make restitution to the government for the damage they allegedly did in connection with the creation and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities in the subprime mortgage crisis. Our subject here is not, however, whether the sums extracted from the banks (e.g.,Citigroup $7 billion, Bank of America $16.65 billion, JPMorgan $13 billion) are proportionate to their alleged culpabilities. Rather, our subject is what Justice does with millions of these dollars.

Read the full article, and read Rosenkranz's piece at the Volokh Conspiracy for more on the issue:

The Justice Department has celebrated its settlements with major banks for their conduct leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis, and the headlines have trumpeted the staggering total sums: Bank of America $16.65 billion, Citigroup $7 billion, JPMorgan $13 billion. What is less well known is that some of this money — amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars — is designated for “donation” to various “community development” organizations that were neither parties to the case nor victims of the alleged wrongdoing. Investor’s Business Daily hascharacterized these payments as “political payoffs to Obama constituency groups,” and Congress is now considering banning this practice with theStop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016.

Additionally, Rosenkranz and Gray both testified before the The U.S. House of Representatives Committee On Financial Services, Subcommittee On Oversight and Investigation in May.