Obama Mortgage Deal Frontman Sounds Off

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller believes he is tougher on the banking industry that many news reports would have you believe.

Little known outside his home state until bank foreclosure practices became an issue of national concern, Miller led negotiations on behalf of state attorneys general with the five largest U.S. mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses that resulted in a $25 billion dollar settlement earlier this month.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller led the negotiations with banks resulting in a $25 billion mortgage settlement and is a co-chair on the Obama Administration's national reelection committee.

A common narrative in press and bank analyst reports during the more than yearlong negotiations suggested Miller and a majority of other attorneys general were willing to settle the matter with the banks for $20 billion or less while granting them broad immunities regarding a wide range of mortgage-related abuses.

A smaller group of attorneys general, including New York's Eric Schneiderman, publicly announced they would not go along with a deal that granted those broad immunities, implying Miller and the others were willing to do so. At one point, Miller ejected Schneiderman from the group's executive committee, arguing New York's attorney general sought to "undermine" efforts of the other AGs to reach a deal.

In an interview last week, Miller wasn't ready to concede that he isn't as tough on the banking industry as Schneiderman or others, such as California's Kamala Harris, who were among the last ones to sign an agreement with the banks.

"I think Roy Cooper (N.C.) and Lisa Madigan (Il.) and George Jepsen (Conn.) and I are among the strongest and toughest on the banks," Miller said. "Eric took a position opposing the settlement for a long time, and now he's at the lead of some important investigations on securities. So I think it really has to play out if he's stronger than Lisa and Roy and George and I."

Miller also rejected the notion that he would have been willing to grant banks immunities from other mortgage-related liability if it hadn't been for Schneiderman and some of other holdouts--Delaware and Massachusetts, for example.

Miller called it "just totally false that they got the release narrowed. The release was always going to be narrowed. It was never going to include [mortgage] securities. The negotiations on the release took place over months and were on a clear path to where they ended with it being narrow and that there be nothing [protecting banks from] criminal prosecution. That was never going to be raised--never was even discussed."

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