One of the most outrageous abuses of the Obama presidency was a scheme by which fines for corporate misbehavior by the biggest Wall Street banks were channeled into the hands of radical leftist groups that are now vehemently opposing the policies of President Trump. We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars that ought to have gone to the federal treasury, but instead became a slush fund for the left.

Paul Sperry explains in the New York Post:

Wall Street might be shocked to learn it is helping bankroll the anti-Trump “resistance” movement that’s aggressively fighting policies it favors — including corporate tax cuts and the repeal of Obama-era banking and health-care regulations.

The Obama administration’s massive shakedown of Big Banks over the mortgage crisis included unprecedented back-door funding for dozens of Democratic activist groups who were not even victims of the crisis.

At least three liberal nonprofit organizations the Justice Department approved to receive funds from multibillion-dollar mortgage settlements were instrumental in killing the ObamaCare repeal bill and are now lobbying against GOP tax reform, as well as efforts to rein in illegal immigration.

An estimated $640 million has been diverted into what critics say is an improper, if not unconstitutional, “slush fund” fed from government settlements with JPMorgan Chase and Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., according to congressional sources.

The payola is potentially earmarked for third-party interest groups approved by the Justice Department and HUD without requiring any proof of how the funds will be spent. Many of the recipients so far are radical leftist organizations who solicited the settlement cash from the administration even though they were not parties to the lawsuits, records show.

This should never have happened, and conservatives (including AT) were aghast at the time. Imagine if President Trump were to try to funnel fines for corporate misbehavior to the NRA or the Family Research Council. The din of complaints from every MSM outlet in the country would endanger our national hearing.  Sperry lists three radical left groups that are conducting anti-Trump activities that are funded by money belonging to taxpayers.

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA

The Hispanic-rights group strenuously protested the Republican-led “skinny” repeal of the Affordable Care Act after receiving at least $1.5 million from the Obama regime’s bank settlement funds, congressional researchers say.

The notoriously radical organization, which advocates on behalf of illegal immigrants, argued the Trump proposal would have a “harmful impact” on the Hispanic community, including stripping potentially “8 million Latinos” of medical coverage.

Note that this group, originally funded by the Ford Foundation, has recently rebranded itself, because people started realizing that an explicitly race-based advocacy organization looks bad in a race-obsessed leftist universe.  Now, they are transitioning to the brand of Unidos.

And

NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

After receiving at least $1.2 million from the bank-settlement slush fund, the African-American advocacy group solicited its supporters to oppose efforts to repeal ObamaCare by signing a letter to senators arguing “African-Americans stand to be disproportionately impacted.” It claimed more than 5 million black people would lose coverage under repeal legislation.

And:

NATIONAL COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT COALITION

Since hauling in at least $2.6 million in funds under settlement in the Obama-era mortgage suits, the liberal housing-rights group has slammed tax-reform proposals by the Trump administration as unfair, while trying to block efforts to privatize mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming doing so would “deepen the racial wealth gap.”

NCRC is also actively lobbying against regulatory repeal of many provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

I presume that since the fines were converted into donations, they were mad tax-deductible. Id that is so, then taxpayers were doubly hosed: loss of the $640 million dollars that belonged to the Treasury, and then the corporate income taxes that were not paid on the taxable income, thanks to deductions. If this was at the corporate rate of 35%, it amounts to another $224 million, or a total of $864 million dollar given away by the executive branch, with no authorization from Congress.

I don’t know who might have standing to sue on behalf of taxpayers over the unjust enrichment of left wing political groups, but in my dreams the courts would use the legal mechanisms to “claw back” the funds misappropriated.

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman