Having installed the dumbest, most vicious loyalists in every corner of government, President Donald Trump can be sure that none of them will balk at his demand that they find something, anything, to be used against his enemies. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte is only too happy to oblige. Thus far, Pulte has dutifully produced allegations of mortgage fraud against California Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.
Surely it’s just a coincidence that all of those are targets of Trump’s ire, right? Pulte must have stumbled upon this hotbed of mortgage fraud in the normal course of his job as director of an agency that investigates mortgage fraud. Yeah, not really. FHFA does have a fraud prevention program, but that’s about resources for detecting and avoiding mortgage fraud, not about spelunking through the mortgage records of people Trump hates in the hopes of finding something to threaten them over.
Ed Martin
In the course of this noble endeavor, Pulte has teamed up with the Department of Justice because while Pulte can pretend that his job includes ferreting out mortgage fraud, he can’t pretend he can criminally prosecute anyone. Enter Ed Martin, who was rewarded with a Department of Justice job as pardons attorney after being so comically bad at his interim United States attorney job that Trump yanked his nomination.
Martin is now also the special attorney for mortgage fraud, and he is so hyped about his new role that he decided to go stand outside James’ house last week, bringing along a New York Post photographer to snap pictures of his fresh mid-August look: a trenchcoat over a dark gray suit.
This would be a bizarre thing for a DOJ attorney to do under any circumstances. Given that Martin is actively, personally, aggressively investigating James for alleged criminal conduct and knows full well she is represented by counsel because he sent her attorney an extremely weird letter last week saying it would be an “act of good faith” if James would resign, showing up at James’ house is not exactly an ethical move.
The amount of unethical it is for a prosecutor to stalk someone they are investigating and then go brag about it on Fox News while also declaring that a criminal referral for mortgage fraud means he can “look at everything else” James is doing is honestly staggering. James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, needed multiple footnotes in his letter to Martin to explain how Martin’s conduct violates the Department of Justice Manual, the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct, the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Standards for the Prosecution Function, and more.
Also, dude, it’s just creepy to lurch around someone’s home looking like an aging Tucker Carlson impersonator with a camera crew in tow.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook
Martin doesn’t appear to have gone to Cook’s house yet, but give him time. Pulte only made his criminal referral to the DOJ public on Wednesday. Well, sort of public.
In the truly professional fashion that is the hallmark of this administration, Pulte posted a screenshot of only part of the letter on X, so no one can really assess whether Pulte’s allegations about Cook are true. Just for fun, though, let’s pretend everything Pulte alleges Cook did is true, which is, at very worst, got two mortgages based in part on falsely claiming they were both primary residences.
Let’s contrast that with, oh, say, a decade-long scheme by the president and his sons to fraudulently inflate Trump’s net worth to get favorable loan terms. According to Trump, as long as you pay your loans back on time, there is no victim and no crime when you lie to a bank to get better loan terms. Perhaps Cook can have Trump explain that to Pulte.
Then again, Cook is not an all-time Trump villain like Schiff or James. She’s facing prosecution only because Trump wants her out of the way so he can install someone more willing to let Trump’s capricious whims drive American economic policy. Meanwhile, Martin will be standing ready, though perhaps he might need to take a quick break to memorize all four job titles he’s now acquired, none of which mean anything except that he’s in charge of making life hell for everyone not in thrall to Trump.
