The Justice Department has repeatedly and significantly overstated its efforts to prosecute mortgage fraud, an internal watchdog said on Thursday in a report that cited the department’s “disturbing†inability to verify its information.
The report by the department’s inspector general undercuts the Obama administration’s contentions that it is cracking down on those responsible for the collapse of the financial and housing markets. The administration has been criticized, in particular, for not pursuing large banks and their executives.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in 2012 that prosecutors had charged 530 people over the previous year in cases related to mortgage fraud that had cost homeowners more than $1 billion.
Almost immediately, the Justice Department realized it could not back up those statistics, the inspector general said. After months of review, it was clear that only 107 people were charged.
The $1 billion figure, it turned out, had been drastically inflated. It was actually $95 million, the inspector general said.
Yet Justice Department officials repeated those claims for months, even after it was obvious the figures were wrong, the inspector general said.
