Even before my previous column about the Trump administration’s “mortgage fraud” allegations against Letitia James, I knew many folks in the real estate industry despised the New York attorney general.
Their low opinion of her has since become even more obvious as some cheered President Donald Trump’s revenge play, or argued that James had actually committed a crime.
Some advice: When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
More details have emerged showing just how weak the “mortgage fraud” claim is. It is beyond flimsy. I would call it laughable, except there is nothing really funny about a president fabricating criminal cases against political opponents.
Should this ever reach a courtroom, any first-year law student could defend James and win, unless the jury were composed of Trump lackeys who accept $50,000 cash payments in food bags.
As in any real estate transaction, James signed a bunch of documents when she and her niece bought a house in Virginia for the niece to live in. One form was a limited power of attorney so her niece could do the closing without her. Drafted for a third-party closing company from a template that was never corrected, it indicated the house would be a primary residence.
That was the “fraud,” according to Bill Pulte, Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency chief, and Ed Martin, the hack in charge of weaponizing the Department of Justice. Martin leads the department’s Weaponization Working Group, if you can believe they actually named it that.
Pulte and Martin claimed this document allowed James to get a lower interest rate on the mortgage. But the document had nothing to do with her mortgage. The loan officers told investigators they never even considered it.
Moreover, every other document in the transaction showed the Virginia home would not be James’ primary residence. And it’s no secret that she is New York’s attorney general. Clearly, James was not trying to deceive anyone, nor did the single flawed form provide her any benefit.
To sum up, there was neither an intent to commit a crime nor a result. James’ infraction was the equivalent of accidentally bringing a regular-size tube of toothpaste through airport security.
Even critics of James freely admit the probe is retaliation by Trump for James’ prosecution of him for inflating the value of his properties on loan applications. “Absolute stain on our democracy and its ideals,” one lawyer emailed me. “Disgusting power revenge play against a political enemy.”
The lawyer, incidentally, insisted James’ action was technically fraud because “she is responsible for what she signs.”
But to prosecute someone for that is preposterous. Imagine stepping on gum while shopping, walking out of the store with the gum stuck to your shoe and being arrested for stealing it. That is the level of pettiness here.
So much actual crime — Medicare fraud, internet scams, you name it — with real victims is never pursued because law enforcement lacks the resources to do so. Yet in probing James, a team of investigators interviewed or put before a grand jury 15 people, including insurers, loan officers, underwriters, real estate agents and James’ niece, according to ABC News.
Trump wasted prosecutors’, witnesses’ and jurors’ time while making a mockery of the justice system and openly demonstrating a presidential abuse of authority.
The latest is that U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, the top federal prosecutor in the prestigious Eastern District of Virginia, was fired for refusing to bring the unwinnable and unjust case. Siebert was a Trump nominee.
Trump replaced him with Maggie Clearly. It’s ironic that in May she pledged “to end politically weaponized investigations.”
Although James’ prosecution of Trump was itself politically motivated, she did have a credible case: She won a conviction that was upheld by the well-respected Appellate Division, even as it threw out the gigantic financial penalty imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron.
James wasn’t the only political target accused of mortgage fraud by the administration. So was Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, whose crime against Trump was not lowering interest rates as quickly as he wanted (a power she does not unilaterally possess).
Trump’s people found standardized federal mortgage forms for her second-home purchase in Atlanta, indicating it would be her primary residence. But Reuters found that stipulation exists “unless the lender agrees in writing,” according to a document filed in a Georgia court for Cook’s transaction.
Guess what? The lender did agree in writing. “Property use: vacation home,” its loan estimate says.
Putting a cap on Pulte’s farcical fraud hunt (an effort to endear himself to Trump), ProPublica reported that three members of the president’s cabinet claim primary-residence status on two mortgaged homes.
That is legal if each loan application was honestly made. Former House member Lee Zeldin, who owns a house on Long Island, bought a place in Washington when he joined the administration. So did Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, who had purchased a New Jersey home with a principal residence loan in 2021.
But the third cabinet member’s mortgage looks suspicious. “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,” ProPublica reported.
Hoist by their own petard, it would appear.
Read more
The Daily Dirt: Behind the Tish-versus-Trump fight
Trump’s revenge play against Tish James looks like a long shot
Trump’s DOJ targets Letitia James’ civil fraud victory
