President Trump’s announcement three days after Senator Adam Schiff is accused of committing mortgage fraudSchiff’s lawyer wrote to the Justice Department privately that the claims had no “factual basis” but had “full basis” to investigate Bill PulteTrump administration officials have dug out the president’s most prominent political opponents’ mortgage records.
“The highly irregular partisan process that leads to these baseless allegations is uneasy; the purposeful, coordinated public disclosure of the material contains confidential personal information without taking into account the security risks of the senator and his family; and the role of Mr. Pat in this difficult work, “this huge effort,” Preet Bharara wrote in a letter review on July 18, written by Preet Bharara in a letter review on August 18.
The federal housing finance institution where Pulte served as director did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Justice Department said ATTY. General Pam Bondi directed Ed Martin to be a Trump loyalist and director of the Weaponization Task Force – “starting an investigation into criminal referrals for housing agencies” and Martin “will make a public statement on the matter when appropriate.”
Trump previously nominated Martin (Missouri lawyer and no prosecutor experience) as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., but Schiff, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ruled Martin’s nomination and eventually withdrew Martin’s nomination without Republican support.
Bharara outlines the reasons he believes the president’s allegations against Schiff are unfounded and attached a letter from Schiff to the mortgage lender at his home near Washington, D.C., which Bharara said proved Schiff was a local resident who listed the home of the home and one of his main residences in his home as a mortgage resident.
Schiff simultaneously referred to two different houses as primary residences, which was the basis for Trump’s allegations and the basis for Pat’s referral of matters to the Justice Department for criminal review.
Bharara blew up Pulte as “a man appointed by the president, whose mission appears to be to abuse the power of the office to create allegations of criminal conduct against what the president considers to be political opponents,” and advises top Justice Department officials not to become accomplices on such political motives.
Bharara wrote to Bondi and Atty’s deputy. General Todd Blanche. “Instead, Mr. Pulte’s abuse of his position should be investigated by the nonpartisan inspector general to determine whether Mr. Pulte’s actions should be referred to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation.”
Democrats questioned the legitimacy of Pulter’s several political opponents, including Schiff, who led the House’s impeachment against Trump. New York atty. General Letitia James led the investigation and litigation of the president; Fed Governor Lisa Cook voted to maintain federal interest rates rather than lower them as Trump calls for.
Pulte filed different charges against each person, but at the heart of it is claiming that they all misrepresent the facts in the mortgage documents to secure favorable tax or loan terms, including listing multiple homes as their primary residence at the same time.
Trump cited claims against Cook as a reason to evacuate her from the Federal Reserve, and she challenged her in court. Critics condemned the move as a partisan attack aimed at allowing Trump to control the economy away from the independent Fed.
Pulte fades or ignores ProPublica’s report Several of Trump’s own cabinet members have made similar housing requirements in mortgage and other financial paperwork. Reuters’ report That Pulte’s father and stepmother did the same. Other Reuters reports In eight years of court data, the federal government has rarely filed criminal charges only for misstatements on the principal place of residence statements in mortgage records.
Trump, along with former prosecutor Schiff, claimed that he deliberately misled his primary residence in Potomac, Maryland, rather than in California, to “get cheaper mortgages and strip the United States of America.” Trump cited Fannie Mae’s “Financial Crime Department” investigations as his sources.
Attorneys for Sen. Adam Schiff of California wrote a letter to the Justice Department saying President Trump’s allegations “had no basis for fact.”
(Jose Luis Magana/AP)
The Times report that Fannie Mae investigators went to Pulte’s memorandum noted that the Federal Housing Financial Institutions Inspector’s Inspectorate Office has asked investigators about loan files and conducted “any relevant investigation or quality control documents” on Schiff’s house.
Investigators said they concluded that between 2009 and 2020, Siff and his wife “engaged in a sustained pattern of possible occupancy misrepresentation” while simultaneously identifying the Potomac family and Burbank units as their primary residences. Investigators did not say they had convicted the crime.
Schiff publicly dismissed Trump’s allegations without any basis, accusing the president of making mortgage fraud claims “the weapon he chose to attack those who stood on his way and those who stood by him like me.” Balla’s letter outlined his defense in more detail.
Part of the defense was that Bharara’s letter said Schiff had sent his lender, Quicken Loans, at his Maryland home, a copy of which had been provided to the Department of Justice and reviewed by the Times.
Schiff wrote in the letter he sent in a 2010 refinancing that although California was his “primary legal residence,” and where he paid his taxes, he had been told by lenders’ attorneys and the House Administrative Committee that Maryland families “may be considered the primary residence of insurance commitments” because his family members lived during the year.
Bharara called the letter a “transparent disclosure” and “the opposite of mortgage misrepresentation.”
Schiff had previously said neither of the homes were holidays or investment properties and were correctly classified based on the use of his family and how he negotiated with the home attorney and lender.
Bharara wrote that another part of Schiff’s defense was that even though he committed fraud by making false statements in the mortgage documents – Bharara said he did not – the 10-year restriction regulations accused him of failing because “the recent mortgage application even Mr. Pulte was going to attract even the charges of being over twelve.”
Bharara also listed some reasons, and he believes Pulte’s behavior should be investigated.
Bharara asserted that the Federal Housing Financing Institution Inspector General appears to have asked Fannie Mae’s financial crime investigation unit to delve into Schiff’s mortgage record “on Mr. Pat’s religion”, and in May, Pulte personally handed the matter to the Justice Department before Fannie Mae’s troops even provided him with the findings.
He also wrote that criminal referrals were made public because the president tried to disperse the relationship with [convicted sex offender] Jeffery Epstein. ”
As a result, Schiff’s speech was delivered, which Bharara said threatened the senator and forced him to take “extra safety precautions.” Schiff also launched a legal defense fund to help him defend himself from the president’s allegations.
Bharara, a former U.S. attorney in New York, described Pat’s behavior as “highly irregular” and as part of his “pattern” of “abuse the office” to follow Trump’s political rival.
“After so many irregular and doubtful procedures, after so long investigation, when the President repeatedly expressed his long-term desire to investigate and imprison Sen. Schiff, it would be a deep partisan and injustice, an act of partisan and injustice that was not worthy of the Justice Department,” Bharara wrote. “Instead, it is Mr. Pulte’s actions that should be investigated.”
