Friday, September 19, 2025

Trump Is Accusing Foes with Multiple Mortgages of Fraud

The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers. President Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator and a state attorney general.

Posted by LampLighter at 09:32 PM | 11 COMMENTS | permalink

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#ICYMI: The White House has targeted opponents, including Lisa Cook, for having more than one primary residence on their loan papers. ProPublica found that, in one case, a Trump cabinet secretary got two such mortgages in quick succession.

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-- ProPublica (@propublica.org) Sep 10, 2025 at 1:05 PM

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More from the article ...

... Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time is often legal and rarely prosecuted.

But if administration officials continue the campaign, mortgage records show there's another place they could look: Trump's own Cabinet.

Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump's Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she's known to vacation.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.

In a flurry of interviews and rapid-fire posts on X, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has led the charge in accusing Trump opponents of mortgage fraud. "If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation," Pulte said last month. ...



#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-09-19 12:07 AM

A 34 time felon projecting his own actions on others is nothing new.

#2 | Posted by Nixon at 2025-09-19 07:25 AM

Prosecute.

#3 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-09-20 12:49 AM

Trump is a fraud.

#4 | Posted by Alexandrite at 2025-09-20 01:04 AM

Mortgage fraud is probably something Trump knows about. Bigly.

#5 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2025-09-20 05:10 AM

Mortgage fraud is probably something Trump knows about. Bigly.

#5 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis

Convicted of 34 felony counts for exactly that.

#6 | Posted by AMERICANUNITY at 2025-09-20 08:53 AM

Prosecute.

#3 | Posted by visitor_

Can't.

Turns out most aren't actually guilty of anything except the DOJ not knowing how to ready mortgage documents.

#7 | Posted by Sycophant at 2025-09-20 01:02 PM

Prosecute.

#3 | POSTED BY VISITOR_

Im all for digging into your personal life to do exactly this.

#8 | Posted by jpw at 2025-09-20 02:53 PM

I've never claimed more than one primary residence at a time on loan or tax documents.

#9 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-09-20 05:14 PM

Mortgages, how do they work?

#10 | Posted by john47 at 2025-09-21 03:38 AM

__________
Reuters: "A loan for an Atlanta home purchased by Lisa Cook... shows that Cook had declared the property as a 'vacation home.'" Case closed.

People who Trump publicly accuses of mortgage fraud are credit-worthy enough to get loans at the best possible rates regardless of the properties' stated purpose so, unlike Trump - who was convicted of multiple counts of real estate fraud - they didn't actually need to commit fraud to get favorable terms.

#9 | Posted by visitor_ at 2025-09-20 05:14 PM
I've never claimed more than one primary residence at a time on loan or tax documents.

Good for you.

For taxes there may only be one "Primary" residence. For loans there may be several "Principal" residences if you spend substantial amount of time there (e.g., working or taking care of a relative in other city or state, etc.) and they are not "vacation" / "secondary" / "rental" or "investment" properties.

This is not unusual.

What is unusual - and much more interesting - is WHO dug this generally non-public info and WHY it was done the way it was:

WHO : Bill Pulte, current head of FHFA, who inherited PulteGroup real estate empire, currently worth $26B.

HOW : Did Pulte or his staff just happen to read some randomly chosen (from millions held by Fannie and Freddy) past mortgage applications and stumbled into the alleged abuses by NY AG Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff and Fed Gov. Lisa Cook? Mortgage files are not public, so what was the 'primary' reason for him to even start looking for this information?

WHY : If he really thought they committed a fraud, why announce it publicly instead of going through usual procedures of informing IG and eventually referring the case to DOJ for prosecution?

Obviously, as was the case with Jerome Powell, the intent is to intimidate and force out a member of supposedly "independent" agency to staff it with lapdogs who would do his bidding of lowering interest rates and devaluing the USD, regardless of inflation or other economic issues.

Pulte's RE company can also potentially profit from lower interest rates... but Trump's and his cabinet of flunkeys issue of conflicts of interests seems to be a feature, not a bug.

Maybe Pulte himself has some 'splaining to do?
__________

#11 | Posted by CutiePie at 2025-09-21 09:56 PM

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