While previous directors of the Federal Housing Finance Agency were obscure figures who were unknown to the public, Bill Pulte, the FHFA’s current chief, has blazed a rather unusual trail by contrast.
To an outlandish degree, the Trump loyalist has taken it upon himself to target one White House foe after another, weaponizing mortgage fraud allegations against the president’s perceived political enemies.
While the apparent goal was to create controversies for Trump’s targets and antagonists, Pulte has managed at the same time to become controversial in his own right. NBC News reported, for example:
The Government Accountability Office, an independent and nonpartisan investigative watchdog for Congress, says it has opened an investigation into Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte. In November, top Senate Democrats wrote to ask the agency to ‘promptly investigate recent actions undertaken at the Federal Housing Finance Agency’ by Pulte.
Last month’s appeal specifically highlighted Pulte’s actions related to “recent referrals of New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and Congressman Eric Swalwell to the U.S. Department of Justice for mortgage fraud.”
Evidently, the GAO, which confirmed the opening of the investigation, agreed that the director’s actions warrant scrutiny.
Complicating matters, this isn’t the only probe Pulte has to worry about. MS NOW reported two weeks ago that a federal grand jury in Maryland is investigating whether Pulte and Justice Department official Ed Martin illegally shared sensitive grand jury information with unauthorized people. The report added: Improperly sharing sensitive grand jury information is a serious breach of Justice Department rules. Investigators who are found to have done so can face criminal charges including obstruction of justice, contempt of court and also stiff fines. FBI agents have asked witnesses to turn over records and have interviewed them about people who may have presented themselves as federal investigators working on behalf of Pulte or Martin, according to the sources and documents reviewed by MS NOW. And in case that weren’t quite enough, Swalwell, a California Democrat whom the FHFA chief also referred to the Justice Department for a potential federal criminal probe, recently sued Pulte, claiming the Trump loyalist had abused his position and breached federal privacy laws. Time will tell whether any or all of these efforts lead to adverse consequences for the director, but as the overlapping cases and investigations move forward, Pulte faces the kind of pushback he probably hoped to avoid.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
