This shift toward Holder, however, deserves scrutiny. There have been plenty of documented stories of reluctance toward investigation from Treasury and the SEC and HUD. This centers all the attention on DoJ, however. It’s not entirely credible that Holder is operating independently to slow-walk an investigation that has been slow-walked by virtually every official in the Obama Administration at one point or another. It feels as if Holder has become the “rotating villain” in this scheme, someone to deflect attention away from the whole policy framework to let the banks off for their crimes. Ultimately, the buck has to stop at the very top, with the President.

President Obama’s star-studded fundraiser at George Clooney’s house went off without a hitch. But before the event, about 50 activists with the Campaign for a Fair Settlement, mostly low-income victims of foreclosure or predatory activity by the financial sector, made their appeal to the President in a protest on the motorcade route to the residence, asking for Obama to “light a fire under the Department of Justice” and step in to help homeowners stay in their homes.