Last week it seemed Eric Schneiderman’s suit against MERS and three banks using MERS represented a carve-out on the final foreclosure fraud settlement. There was speculation that other states might have carve-outs or grandfathered suits, so they would be able to pursue those investigations and prosecutions and still join the settlement. But Bloomberg reports today that some states with active lawsuits would have to settle them as part of the deal.

Cal. AG Kamala Harris wants to do investigations on origination fraud, on borrowers not learning the true terms of their deals until after signing. But the 2008 Countrywide deal extinguished many of those claims, and on others, the statute of limitations has run out. So by calling the settlement term sheet “inadequate,” Harris was playing for a bigger deal, perhaps a way to access longer federal jurisdictions on origination claims, more of a share of the financial benefit, or something.

As reported here at Firedoglake three days ago, Occupy Pittsburgh, which has been occupying land owned by a bank known as BNY Mellon for over a hundred days, is to be evicted by the bank after noon today. The eviction comes after a judge issued a decision siding with the “bank’s claim of immediate and irreparable harm” if the occupation remained on the property. We will cover this live.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan sought to clarify comments to reporters made over the weekend about expectations of “substantial” principal reduction payments from the foreclosure fraud settlement made out of loans owned by private-label investors in mortgage-backed securities, not the banks themselves. In fact, Donovan told FDL News, the “large majority” of principal reduction would instead come from the banks’ own books. But the details and sequencing matter.

I don’t know if this report will delay the rush to settlement. But it calls into sharp relief what will be settled: years, decades actually, of ongoing fraudulent conduct.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan mostly confirmed that private-label mortgage-backed securities investors, not banks or servicers, will end up shouldering the cost of much of the imminent foreclosure fraud settlement despite the risk of litigation from investors who are likely to challenge the forced losses on their securities in court.

On a small conference call for progressive media, Donovan claimed that the money available in the settlement for principal reduction for underwater borrowers would actually come to $35-$40 billion, over double the $17 billion in nominal principal reduction that has been widely reported.

The initial measure of whether or not the banks are following the terms of the settlement will come from “internal quality control groups.” In other words, the foxes will guard the henhouse. The internal quality control groups will turn over quarterly reports (so abuses from January would theoretically not get discovered until April), and only at that point would the monitor be allowed to let a third party review the report if he finds improper implementation of them. But basically, this extends out the enforcement process by months and submits it to an initial gatekeeper run by the banks.

In his statement on the Administration’s new housing policies, CFPB Director Richard Cordray makes a fairly stunning response, considering it’s posted at the White House blog: “Documents were falsified,” which means criminal fraud. That raises concerns about how broad is the release from criminal liability contained in the proposed settlement.

In a recent filing in Nevada, mortgage servicer LPS used the whitewash IG report from Florida — after the Fla. AG dismissed the two attorneys gathering evidence on LPS — to justify the dismissal of their lawsuit in Nevada. LPS lobbyists more recently urged the Florida AG’s office to intervene on their behalf in a criminal case in Michigan. The connections between the Florida AG’s office and LPS just continue to grow.

Among other things, Masto questions whether there will be “geographic discrimination” involved in the settlement, wondering whether enforceable controls will be employed to prevent some states from making out better than others. Clearly this is a reference to the attempted California bribe of up to $15 billion out of the $25 billion total. Masto asks for an expected range of value from the settlement for each state, not just California. She wants to know if the states or the federal government would be in control if something goes wrong with the settlement.