Early last month, the Washington State Democrats jumped on the news that several state attorneys general were bailing on a class action suit against banks for unscrupulous foreclosure tactics because they felt the pending settlement was too lenient on banks. Democrats, such as State Party Chair Dwight Pelz, saw an opening because one AG who wasn't bailing was Washington State AG Rob McKenna. McKenna stuck by the negotiations insisting the banks were being held accountable.

We reported at the time:

Several states’ attorneys general, including AGs from California, Massachusetts, and New York, have dropped out of the negotiations in disgust, criticizing the pending deal for not pursuing a full-fledged investigation into illegal foreclosure practices and for agreeing to too broad a waiver from claims.

“It goes against the DNA of an AG to say, ‘I’m going to agree to a waiver of liability without investigation’,” Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway told Politico  when he dropped out of the negotiations.

This weekend,  Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times business columnist Gretchen Morgenson pounced on the pending deal as well:

Cutting to the chase: if you thought this was the deal that would hold banks accountable for filing phony documents in courts, foreclosing without showing they had the legal right to do so and generally running roughshod over anyone who opposed them, you are likely to be disappointed.

This may not qualify as a shock. Accountability has been mostly A.W.O.L. in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. A handful of state attorneys general became so troubled by the direction this deal was taking that they dropped out of the talks. Officials from Delaware, New York, Massachusetts and Nevada feared that the settlement would preclude further investigations, and would wind up being a gift to the banks.

Morgeson goes on to second a point that critics, including Pelz, have stressed—the deal may insulate banks from further claims, contradicting McKenna's statement to the press that the deal would not give banks "amnesty" or "waive" complainants' rights without consent.

Morgenson writes:

The deal being discussed now may also release the big banks that are members of MERS, the electronic mortgage registry, from the threat of some future legal liability for actions involving that organization. MERS, which wreaked havoc with land records across the country, was sued last week by Beau Biden, Delaware’s attorney general, on accusations of deceptive trade practices.

The MERS registry was also subpoenaed last week by Eric Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, as part of his investigation into the fun-while-it-lasted mortgage securitization fest. If he were to sign on to the settlement, his investigation into MERS could not move forward.