Why are all these leading Democrats suddenly facing allegations of mortgage fraud? Guess who is behind
Like the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Glass,” I have the ability to believe in six things before breakfast.
But my credibility surpassed the breakpoint due to federal mortgage fraud charges filed against Donald Trump’s three leading opponents (Sen). Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), Atty, New York. General Letitia James and (most recently) Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Trump claimed on Monday that career opened fire.
James is a Democrat. Cook served as deputy secretary of the Treasury during the Obama administration.
No one goes back to check the loan application to fulfill the loan fraud; this will require any benefit to be spent.
Georgetown Law Adam Levitin
When she was initially nominated by President Biden in 2022 to complete her unterm term, she did not receive a Republican vote in the Senate. A year later, when she was confirmed complete, she received a Republican vote.
Despite how loud these allegations are, to draw me, you should also get the weak of these allegations, as if their signal in terms of goals is both a huge moral twist and how it originated in the federal housing finance institutions from Trump Acolyte and super assistant William J. Pulte, in private life, private life.
Adam Levitin of Georgetown Law believes that an important question is who is pushing these investigations and collecting these allegations and whether they reflect the “list of enemies,” Pulte edited on behalf of Donald Trump. I asked FHFA to answer Levitin’s question, but no answer.
Trump put Pulte’s allegations against Cook into practice to fire her. Only the president can fire the Federal Reserve governor, and there can only be “reasons”. The allegations are so trivial that whether the dismissal poses an open question. In his dismissal letter, Trump accused Cook of “deceptive, potential criminal acts.” Given that there has been no publicly provided evidence to justify this, this is an outrageous assertion.
The allegations against all three targets involve misunderstandings of occupation – occupancy fraud, if you prefer. Specifically, Cook, Schiff and James were accused of falsely telling the mortgage lender that the loan was targeted at their primary residence.
The idea is that they may have received a break in the terms of the loan (requiring a lower down payment or a lower interest rate fee) because lenders believe the borrower is kind to the main residence.
However, none of the public charges from the FHFA specified the financial advantage (if any) obtained by the target.
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Occupy fraud is a fairly low issue for mortgage lenders, which tends to judge the borrower’s credibility based on factors such as the borrower’s income and property value and the amount of the loan, as well as the borrower’s credit history. Furthermore, the details of each case are very weak.
As Levitra observed in the Cook case, they are unlikely to be the result of a random review of FHFA loans.
“No one went back to check the loan application involved occupancy of fraudulent loans; this would not require any benefit to be spent,” he wrote. “Instead, the only problem with Cook’s loan application is that, as the head of the FHFA, Pulte directed Fannie or Freddie to pull her application. It’s unheard of.”
Quasi-government mortgage lender Fannie Mae also filed a memorandum and brought Pulte to charges against Schiff. As my colleagues Kevin Rector and Laura J. Nelson reported, the one-page memo did not charge any fraud. (Fannie Mae did not initiate any loans, which was to buy mortgages from banks and package them for later sale.)
More importantly, the memorandum states that all five mortgages are their subject matter Have paid off Before July 14, the date of the memorandum. There is no indication in the memorandum that the loan is owed or is otherwise compromised.
The FHFA Inspector General requested “loan archives and any related investigation or quality control documents, as well as all other loans related to… Adam B. Schiff,” the Fannie Mae memorandum said. (The ellipsis indicates part of the memorandum.) With no prior indication of misconduct related to Schiff’s loan – a 2023 CNN article on his two home ownership concluded that he “probably has no legal danger” – where does this demand cause?
Since FHFA’s request specifically targets Schiff’s mortgage, this is obviously not the result of random screening of Fannie Mae loans. The argument for Schiff is a sensation that the allegations are “just the latest attempt by Donald Trump to political revenge against his perceived enemy. So it’s not surprising, only how weak this false accusation is.”
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I asked who in the Office of the Inspector General of FHFA who requested documents, what is the reason for the demand and whether Pulte played any role in the demand. I received no response.
In terms of its impact on the target’s reputation, the allegations have reached their goal. All three goals must be responded through public statements and hiring legal counsel. James said she “will not be intimidated by bullies – whoever they are.” She called the allegations “unfounded” and “no more than a journey of revenge.”
James will recall that Trump committed a verdict last year for mortgage fraud. The New York Court of Appeal last week reversed the trial judge’s $465 million verdict but allowed fraud convictions. The case seems destined to be sent to the state Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal.
Schiff has been one of Trump’s most despicable opponents in Congress, first of all, as a Senate as of this year.
The faithful reaction of Pat and Maga made Cook’s allegations and others indistinguishable from the party smear. On X, Pulte posted a criminal recommendation letter he sent to Atty. General Pam Bondy about Cook. A few days later, he tweeted, “Lisa Cook is cooked.” Then, he abandoned the game by tweeting: “I believe the president has reason to fire Lisa Cook.” That was their goal from the beginning, and they only need time to cover up an excuse. It’s OK, the Justice Department hasn’t said whether Cook will be prosecuted, the charges have not been proven, and whether they have been raised to the level of the cause of firing, which is impossible.
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Relatedly, Cook, part of the Fed’s majority, voted with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to lower interest rates at his recent meeting, which prevented Trump’s demand for lower interest rates. If he could tear down Cook and replace her with a rating cut advocate, he could put more pressure on Powell to choose to cut tax rates by depriving most of Powell’s supporters on the board. It happens that the board has already lowered the tax rate in September, but it could lose its critical independence from Trump.
Before Trump’s orders, Cook marked her resistance. “I have no intention of being bullied from my position because of some questions raised in the tweet,” she said in a formal statement. “I do intend to take my financial history seriously as a member of the Fed, so I am gathering accurate information to answer any legal questions and provide facts.” She did not respond immediately to her own shooting.
As far as they know, this gives us the facts about these three situations. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin recently described James and Schiff’s case as “political hits work.” (He wrote before the Cook case surfaced.)
As Toobin outlined the James case, the charges were in 2023 when she funded her niece’s down payment for a home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia. Besides one of several documents, she said her niece would live in the house. According to her attorney, she said she would be a resident. But considering other documents, banks are hardly misleading.
Similarly, irritating paperwork is at the heart of the other two elements of the case. A form filed in 2001 about Brooklyn Brownstone’s purchase for her family listed the property as having five units, but all other related forms correctly pointed out that it was four units.
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When buying a house in Queens, New York in 1983, James’ father identified her as his spouse, not his daughter, in one form, while the other form correctly identified her. James’ attorney said she did not benefit from any mistakes.
The allegations against Schiff are associated with his ownership of two homes, one in Burbank and the second in Washington, D.C., area. But his dual ownership is clearly known to his mortgage lender, who said he received property tax exemptions from homeowners only on Burbank property.
As for Cook, every claim she made about her on social media seems to undermine his position. Last week, he released part of Cook’s federal disclosure form, identifying three of her mortgages, which all originated in 2021, are 2.5% for 15-year loans, and two 30-year loans of 3.25% and 2.875%.
If these are based on unproven allegations, it is that she has received priority interest rates by claiming they both care about her primary residence, she doesn’t seem to have much rest. In 2021, the average 30-year mortgage interest rate will be between 2.79% and 3.05%. (It is not clear when the loan originated.) The average mortgage rate for 15 years never reached 2.5% at any time of the year, so her salary exceeded the average.
Back in 2014, David H., a former federal housing official, said: “The probability of a small defect is almost 100%. This reduces the importance of the mistakes that Poulte claims to have found almost, especially considering the evidence that Schiff, James, or Cook gets financial benefits from either.
As the judge pointed out in the case, the law does not care about trivial matters. However, in the Trump case, he announced that Trump and his defendants saved tens of millions of dollars. “The fraud found here jumped off the page and shocked the conscience,” he wrote.
Pulte declared that no one was above the law, and that even these mistakes were criminal, he defended his campaign. is that so? If he really thinks mortgage fraud is a disqualification for public office, why don’t he turn his eyes to a public office who was tried as a mortgage fraudster at trial, a massive mortgage fraudster. The judge in Trump’s case gave him a roadmap.
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The story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
