Why are all these leading Democrats suddenly facing mortgage fraud charges? Trump's retribution guy at the Federal Housing Finance Agency

wing2000 said:

I don't need to prove anything. A court already did.

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essentialsaltes said:

Why are all these leading Democrats suddenly facing mortgage fraud charges? Guess who’s behind it​

[Adam Schiff, Letitia James, and now Lisa Cook.]

What gets me, and should get you, is the flimsiness of these accusations despite how loudly they’ve been bruited about on the MAGA right as though they’re signals of profound moral turpitude on the part of the targets, and how they all originated in the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is led by Trump acolyte and sycophant William J. Pulte, in private life a big homebuilder.

The important question, in the view of Adam Levitin of Georgetown Law, is who is driving these investigations and levying these accusations, and whether they reflect an “enemies list” Pulte has compiled on Donald Trump’s behalf. I asked the FHFA to respond to Levitin’s questions, but received no response.

...none of the public accusations from the FHFA specify what, if any, financial advantages were received by the targets.

And it’s unlikely that they’re the result of random audits of FHFA loans, as Levitin observed in relation to the Cook case.

“No one ever goes back and examines loan applications on performing loans for occupancy fraud; that would entail expenses for no benefit,” he wrote. “Instead, the only way anyone would have noticed a problem with Cook’s loan application is that Pulte, as head of FHFA, directed Fannie or Freddie to pull her application. That is unheard of.”

[In Schiff's case, we have an FHFA memo that says as much. The order came from one of the IGs Trump installed after firing most of them.]

The Fannie Mae memo says that the FHFA inspector general demanded “the loan file and any related investigative or quality control documentation, as well as all other loans associated with...Adam B. Schiff.”

The allegations against Schiff relate to his ownership of two homes, one in Burbank and the second in the Washington, D.C., area. But his dual ownership obviously was known to his mortgage lenders, and he has said that he took the homeowner’s property tax exemption only on the Burbank property.

[For James] In all but one of several documents, she stated that the niece would live in the house; according to her lawyer, on one form she said she’d be the occupant. But the bank could hardly have been misled, given the other documents. ... One form filed in 2001 regarding a Brooklyn brownstone bought for her family listed the property as having five units, but all the other pertinent forms stated correctly that it was four units. ... And in the 1983 purchase of house in Queens, New York, James’ father identified her as his spouse, not his daughter, on one form among others that identified her correctly.

Back in 2014, David H. Stevens, a former federal housing official then serving as CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Assn., told the Washington Post that the paper file for a standard mortgage had ballooned to 200-500 pages. “The likelihood of a minor defect is almost 100 percent,” he said. That reduces the significance of the errors Pulte claims to have found nearly to the vanishing point, especially given the paucity of evidence that Schiff, James or Cook got a financial benefit from any of them.

... the law is not concerned with insignificant trifles. In the Trump case, however, [the judge] declared that Trump and his fellow defendants saved tens of millions of dollars. “The frauds found here,” he wrote, “leap off the page and shock the conscience.”

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Clare73 said:

And you know that for a fact, how?

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Clare73 said:

One doesn't have to be a Judge to know when a law is broken.

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Clare73 said:

Keeping in mind that valuation of assets is subjective.

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Clare73 said:

Can you prove he was wrong . . .in light of their value today?

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Clare73 said:

Sour grapes. . .

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RocksInMyHead said:

Because the case has not even gone to court yet (meaning that both parties to the case have not presented any evidence), and you're not omniscient. You may know some of the facts, but I feel pretty confident in saying that you don't know all of them.

True, but one does need to know all of the facts in order to make that determination.

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DaisyDay said:

Not entirely. Claiming an extra 10,000 feet for an apartment is not subjective. Disregarding use covenants (unable to further develop a property because you've claimed it a conservation area) is not subjective. Lying about the number of floors a building has is not subjective.

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DaisyDay said:

Claiming a building is rented out a market rates when it is subject to rent control is not subjective.
There was also a problem that the subjective valuations soared on loan applications and tanked on tax relief applications from the self-same valuator.
It is in the court documents. But that requires reading...

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Clare73 said:

Which you see to be assuming regarding me. . .

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RocksInMyHead said:

I think it's a pretty reasonable assumption to make. You're welcome to try to convince me otherwise though.

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essentialsaltes said:

“No one ever goes back and examines loan applications on performing loans for occupancy fraud; that would entail expenses for no benefit,” he wrote. “Instead, the only way anyone would have noticed a problem with Cook’s loan application is that Pulte, as head of FHFA, directed Fannie or Freddie to pull her application. That is unheard of.”

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Clare73 said:

Why should I bother to address your assumptions. . . you don't sign my paycheck.

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wing2000 said:

Why should anyone engage with you at all?

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Clare73 said:

I give up. . .why?

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Clare73 said:

Why should I bother to address your assumptions. . . you don't sign my paycheck.

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RocksInMyHead said:

If you're not interested in a discussion or backing up your claims, one wonders why you would even bother posting here.

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Clare73 said:

The buyer has no one to blame but himself if he ignores, "Buyer beware."

Surely these injuries were taken to Court and rectified. . .

What were the damages awarded to the injured?

Crickets. . .

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essentialsaltes said:

Correct. Trump's stooges are pulling documents on people who, as far as we know, are paying or have paid off their loans. And these people are on Trump's enemies list that he rants about on the tweeter.

#1 There's no need to investigate.
#2 The things that have turned up have been things like a stray error on one piece of paper, while the correct information also appears multiple times in the total paperwork.

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DaisyDay said:

Shouldn't you give time for a reply before declaring "crickets"? WWTD but declare himself the winner no matter what the actual outcome.

Don't you already know what damages were awarded? I'm sure you're aware the NY Appellate Court dismissed the award

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DaisyDay said:

while upholding the verdict. Not sure if you are aware that the NY Appeals Court has yet to hear the case...

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Clare73 said:

So no one was injured. . .then there is no reason to be in court.

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Clare73 said:

I also would think it is a win if I did not have to pay an award.

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