Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s housing finance chief, on Thursday repeatedly declined to offer any details about where he got the “tip” that led him to accuse Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud.
“I’m not going to explain our sources and methods, where we get tips from, who are whistleblowers,” Pulte said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“It would be reckless for me to do that,” he said.
That refusal came after CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin noted that Pulte’s targeting of Cook — in multiple criminal referrals to the Department of Justice and in a torrent of aggressive social media posts — is creating the perception of “political weaponization.”
“If, for example, the tip came from inside the administration, or came from even inside your agency, with somebody who works for you … then that creates the perception issue,” Sorkin said, adding that shedding light on the tipster could help Pulte explain his actions.
But Pulte bristled at the question.
Bill Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Sept. 4th, 2025.
CNBC
“I don’t need you to help me explain things, Andrew,” he replied.
When he was asked again about the source of the tip later in the interview, Pulte said, “I think we’re worried about the wrong thing. There’s an alleged crime here. Why aren’t we talking about the crime? Why are we blaming the investigators?”
The interview came less than two hours before Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, had been scheduled to hold a press conference on Cook outside of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
But Pulte abruptly cancelled that presser on Wednesday afternoon, saying in an X post that the was doing so “out of respect for the process.”
In Thursday’s interview, he said, “I don’t want to say why I necessarily did” back out of the event.
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