I'll go out on a limb with a little good old fashioned conspiracy theory. Who thinks WMIs total claims will be over/under 40 billion, and by how much.
I'll guess 41 billion, just to play. Perhaps this time, instead of using the IRS to preemtively strike, this time these jokers were brought into the mix to grab headlines and tell the world that even if WMI gets what they want... theyre still screwed.