Pulte Makes New Fraud Allegations Against New York AG James

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte has sent letters to the Department of Justice encouraging prosecutors to open new fraud investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James related to real estate.

Pulte wrote separately to the US attorneys for the Southern District of Florida and Northern District of Illinois in letters dated Wednesday. He alleged that James appeared to misrepresent who would occupy property in separate homeowner insurance applications, saying the documents could indicate that James “may have defrauded” insurers in those states.

James has emerged as one of President Donald Trump top perceived political enemies. She brought a civil lawsuit against him and his company while he was out of office.

“Frustrated by repeated failures, where judges and grand juries have rejected their attempts to charge Attorney General James, Trump and his political enablers keep abusing their power to pursue a vendetta against her by trying to rename, refile, and repeat baseless allegations,” the lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement on behalf of James. “These desperate tactics will fail — just as every previous attempt has failed — and exposes an administration that has abandoned its responsibility to the American people in favor of petty political payback.”

Earlier: Trump Challenges $454 Million Fraud Verdict in ‘Victimless’ Case

“The Department of Justice can confirm that referrals were received by our US Attorney Offices,” the department said in a statement on Wednesday night. Pulte didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, made after normal business hours.

Bill Pulte

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

It is unclear whether the letters will lead to the department opening an investigation. Pulte’s referrals, though, are the latest case in which Trump allies have dug into the mortgage records of political rivals in an attempt to prompt criminal investigations.

Earlier: DOJ Again Fails to Indict James for Alleged Mortgage Fraud

Last October, a federal prosecutor in Virginia charged James with one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution.

A federal judge threw out that indictment, saying that Lindsey Halligan, then the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had been improperly appointed. After that dismissal, the US attorney’s office tried and failed two more times to convince grand juries to charge her.

Those attempts arose after Pulte claimed that she might have committed mortgage fraud based on the residence status she listed on loan documents.

In February, US Attorney General Pam Bondi asked an appeals court to resurrect the scuttled indictments of James and former FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired in his first term.

Trump moved to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook last year following a similar accusation from Pulte that she may have engaged in mortgage-occupancy fraud by falsely claiming a secondary home as a primary residence to obtain more favorable loan terms.

Cook has denied those allegations and challenged Trump’s efforts to oust her in court.

--With assistance from Chris Strohm, Myles Miller and John Harney.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jordan Fabian at jfabian6@bloomberg.net

Meghashyam Mali, Justin Sink

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