When President Donald Trump finds a tool that appears to work he uses it relentlessly, according to Salon writer Blaise Malley.
Similar to arguments Trump is trying to use to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, his administration is now pressuring federal prosecutors to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. The president is on the attack after a civil fraud case James won against Trump last resulted in a severe financial penalty before being reduced on appeal.
The problem with Trump’s case against James, however, is that investigators are admitting that they are finding no evidence that supports a criminal case, according to reporting from ABC News.
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“The investigation focuses on whether James lied on mortgage paperwork when she purchased a Virginia home in 2023 by saying the home would be her primary residence,” reports Malley. “After interviewing more than a dozen witnesses, investigators have so far concluded that there was only one document listing the house as James’s primary residence, which was never used to approve the mortgage and reportedly not prepared by James herself. Every other document stated that the house would not be her primary residence, sources familiar with the case told ABC.”
Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte pulled the information fueling Trump’s charges against Cook, and Malley reports Pulte is now urging the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to bring charges against James. But when prosecutors declined to indict due to flimsy evidence, Pulte reportedly encouraged Trump to fire U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert and install a loyalist more willing to bring charges.
James has denied wrongdoing, Malley said, and her attorney, Abbe Lowell, has dismissed the referral as “three pages of stale, threadbare allegations.”
“Given the cascade of unsubstantiated allegations coming from the Trump administration on its ‘mortgage fraud’ crusade against Democrats, it’s no surprise they are having trouble finding an objective and law-abiding prosecutor who would ignore the facts and the evidence to manufacture sham charges,” Lowell told ABC News.
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Meanwhile, CNBC reports Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once agreed to call two different houses his “principal residence” at the same time — a nearly identical transgression to the one Trump is using to try to unseat Cook. Documents show that on the same day in September 2007, Bessent agreed that homes in both Bedford Hills, New York, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, would be his principal residence.
Read the Salon report at this link.