Mimicking previous allegations against New York State attorney general Letitia James, Donald Trump posted a mortgage affidavit signed by Adam Schiff and called him a “thief” who “should be prosecuted.” While mortgage-related affidavits are generally thought to be in public domain requiring notarization, Trump being in possession of the doc at all is further evidence of weaponizing federal government against his enemies.
As Greg Sargent wrote for The New Republic, Trump’s latest line of attack is based on a “criminal” “referral” made by Fannie Mae against Schiff.
Trump raged on Truth Social that Senator Adam Schiff is guilty of ‘Mortgage Fraud,’ and demanded that he be ‘brought to justice.’ The basis for this claim: Fannie Mae has made a criminal referral to the Justice Department involving several properties owned by the first-term California Democrat.
Greg Sargent, The New Republic
Like much of Trump’s angry rhetoric directed at perceived foes, the allegations had very little basis in fact.
But where did the allegation initially come from? A Los Angeles Times reporter obtained a memo authored by the Fannie Mae Crimes Unit and sent to the head of the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), which oversees the government-backed Fannie Mae. The memo lays out the basis for those charges, but as the Times piece on this reports, the memo nowhere says that Schiff committed fraud,’ as Trump claimed. Even more interestingly, the memo also says this inquiry resulted after the FHFA’s office of inspector general (OIG) made a ‘Document Demand’ from the Fannie Mae Crimes Unit—a demand for documents related to ‘all’ loans ‘associated with’ Schiff.
Greg Sargent, The New Republic
Some of the mechanics of this operation link to Trump associate (and director of Federal Housing Finance Authority) William Pulte, who, as Sargent notes, was a key cog in the process of getting “evidence” in Trump’s hands.
The Fannie Mae memo itself is squirrelly with its charges. It claims that Schiff ‘possibly’ misrepresented his homes on multiple loans. Read through Trump’s whole tweet on this and it’s clear that someone or other created a tidy package of these charges and handed them to Trump—or whoever wrote this tweet—to translate into this missive. How did that happen? Experts also point out that the memo shows that the response to the inspector general’s request was forwarded to William Pulte, a Trump political appointee and loyalist
Greg Sargent, The New Republic
Putle, it should be noted, was also involved in aforementioned false smears against Letitia James involving a referral from the same body—per New York Times.
Adam Schiff led the first impeachment inquiry against Trump. In claiming victory and “exoneration” afterward, Trump called Schiff “a corrupt politician who made up my statement to the Ukrainian president. He brought it out of thin air. Just made it up.”
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
Sure, at base level this is projection at its finest: Trump has been credibly accused—in some cases, found liable and/or convicted—of real estate-related fraud. As in, dodgy property valuations, falsification of records and making false statements to financial institutions, just to name three.
But what I also want to put on you radar is how, in 2025, Donald’s goons inside government have made it easier for mortgage scammers and cheats to do business. At CFPB, Russ Vought dropped consent order against mortgage servicer Fay Servicing, which has a criminal record that “reads like a laundry list.” Vought pulled a similar stunt with Bank of America (which had submitted false mortgage data in the 2016-2017 period), when he allowed a CFPB monitoring program to expire—even though it was supposed to run through 2028.
Revenge against Schiff is only part of the story here. Any time media gets consumed with typing up breathless stories about new accusations related to Donny’s exacting revenge, it reduces bandwidth to report on actual mortgage scammers that his mob is actively enabling.
Something to ponder: what other federal laws did Donald break in his quest to nail Schiff for crime he did not commit?
