Schiff Cheered Politicized Prosecutions Of Trump, Now Whines Over Possible Mortgage Fraud Charges

Schiff Cheered Politicized Prosecutions Of Trump, Now Whines Over Possible Mortgage Fraud Charges

I was interviewed at length by Fox News Digital regarding the possible prosecution of Adam Schiff for alleged mortgage fraud.

The controversy was sparked by a memo from Fannie Mae:

Followed by a Truth Social post by Trump:

Adam Schiff is a THIEF! He should be prosecuted, just like they tried to prosecute me, and everyone else — The only difference is, WE WERE TOTALLY INNOCENT, IT WAS ALL A GIANT HOAX!

The matter has been referred to the Justice Department:

The director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in May citing alleged misconduct by Schiff, who owns homes in California and Maryland.

“Based on media reports, Mr. Adam B. Schiff has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property,” FHFA Director William Pulte wrote in the letter, which Fox News obtained on Wednesday. “As regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, we take very seriously allegations of mortgage fraud or other criminal activity. Such misconduct jeopardizes the safety and soundness of FHFA’s regulated entities and the security and stability of the U.S. mortgage market.”

Trump: "I think Adam Schiff is one of the lowest of the low. I would love to see him brought to justice." pic.twitter.com/U43QszgrOY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2025

Schiff called it “political retaliation.”

Here’s my take.

(Unfortunately, the Fox News video doesn’t have an embed code, so click on the image and it will take you there.)

[Click Image for Video – opens in new window]

The allegation is that Adam Schiff misrepresented his primary residence in a series of mortgage transactions over a decade ago. Fannie Mae has produced a memo which has been widely circulated now, which shows the flow of those transactions and appears to show that Adam Schiff represented multiple residences to be his primary residence.

Why would somebody do that? It’s because you are more likely to get a mortgage and you can get it at a better rate if it is your primary residence. So the allegation, worst case scenario, is that he committed mortgage fraud in obtaining better rates, more favorable loans by misrepresenting his primary residence.

Of course, the government’s going to have to prove that. This is a Fannie Mae memo that’s been circulating, but they are very serious accusations if true, and they could potentially constitute some level of fraud. Now, there would be a lot of different issues as to whether it’s prosecutable, is there a statute of limitations, what other things might apply?

But if an average citizen did this, if an average citizen misrepresented on mortgage documents the primary residence in order to get a favorable rate, I think such person would be prosecuted. Whether the government would find out about it to prosecute is a different story. But if found out and if pushed by the bank or pushed by someone else, I think these would be prosecutable crimes. Certainly there would be falsification of business records, there would be potentially mortgage fraud. Prosecutors could come up with a lot of legal theories to prosecute it.

The question’s going to be, what is the defense here? And we don’t really know what the defense is other than you’re just doing this to me because I’m your political enemy. And that might fly in the political process, but it’s not going fly in court. Didn’t fly in court for Donald Trump when he was prosecuted on very stale business records violations. Everybody knew why he was being prosecuted. It was for political reasons.

In fact, the prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, ran for office saying, I’m going to be the one to get Trump. And of course Adam Schiff and many other Democrats were cheerleading that process all along.

So I think that the fact that it might be politically motivated is probably not a legal defense. It might be a defense in the court of public opinion, so to speak. And Adam Schiff better than anybody, is able to express himself politically. But what his court defense would be if this is prosecuted is something that remains to be seen.

There’s no doubt that if a Trump official had done this or if a Republican senator had done this, and if it was documented the way it appears to be for Adam Schiff, … I think that there would be widespread media calls for a prosecution. There would be widespread calls from Democrats for a prosecution.

One of the interesting things here is, of course, Donald Trump posted on truth social about this, but I’m not heard really any other Republican politicians of stature calling for a prosecution here. I think it’s best left to the Department of Justice. They are no shrinking violets over there now. And I think if they think there was a crime committed here, they will look into it.

But the fact ia that if the shoe was reversed, if the shoe was on the other foot and A Republican had done this, there is no question that that person would be prosecuted.

And we know there’s no question because such a person was prosecuted. Donald Trump for an out of time stale and questionable business records violation that was prosecuted to the cheers of Democrats. So I think that if this were reversed, if this was a Republican and if there were a Democrat administration, I think such Republican would prosecute.

***

I would expect that the first thing the Department of Justice is going do is to gather documents. There will be a paper trail here. There will be many things that are documentable, and not he said, she said, as to where Adam Schiff was actually living. What was his actual primary residence? What did he sign? Who was present when he signed? Did he have conversations with people about it?

So there’s going to be a whole paper trail here, even though it’s over a decade old, that paper should exist. Mortgage companies preserve all of these things because of the financial crisis and other things. They have to maintain these records. But there will be a significant paper trail. And I would expect that that would be the first thing the Department of Justice would look at is the paper trail and the circumstantial evidence as to where Adam Schiff was in fact living.

And did he have multiple residences? Nothing wrong with having multiple residences, but they can’t each be your primary residence. You have to have one primary residence, really by definition. So that would be the first thing I think. They will gather records, they will subpoena records and then they will perhaps start to interview people and start to gather that testimonial trail as to whether this was fraud rising to the level of criminality.

***

We don’t know where this is going to head of course, but it does appear that Adam Schiff is in the sights of Donald Trump. No surprise about that because Donald Trump has been in the sights of Adam Schiff for a decade. So I fully expect that there will be more here.

The question’s going to be really, though, once it moves into the realm of prosecution, what are the prosecutors going do? Because they’re not going to want to be influenced or they shouldn’t be influenced by the politics here.

And so that’s really the question, it’s not so much what Donald Trump wants. Not so much does Donald Trump have a vendetta, but is the Department of Justice, and particularly the criminal prosecutors there, are they going actually to bring a case against Adam Schiff? Because the one thing they don’t want to do is to bring a case that fails, either fails legally or it fails in court. They don’t want to lose that case if you’re going against a major political opponent. And that’s part of the calculation that will take place.

***

I don’t know how many more of these there will be. There are a limited number of people who are key players in the harassment and pursuit of Donald Trump. Certainly Adam Schiff is one of them at a political level. Alvin Bragg is one in a prosecutorial level, but so is Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, who tried to mount a criminal case against Trump but couldn’t find a criminal case to bring. So she brought a civil case, and that’s still in the court system, but Letitia James ran for office and there’s video of her saying that she’s running for office not only to get Donald Trump, but to get his family. And so that was really a poisonous sort of campaign tactic and something a prosecutor should not be doing.

It’s one thing if you’re running for some political office, but when you’re running to be the highest law enforcement officer in a major state, really in any state, you should not be announcing as part of your campaign that I am going to use the resources of my office to get a specific person. And that person’s family. And she followed through on it. She followed through with that case against the Trump organization and Trump family members and Donald Trump himself. So that I think I would not be surprised if, because of the high profile she took in politically targeting, openly politically targeting Donald Trump, if that favor were returned.

But again, if it’s a criminal prosecution, that’s going to be up to the criminal prosecutors at the Department of Justice. And I would not expect them to actually bring a case against Adam Schiff or Letitia James or Alvin Bragg or anybody else unless they thought they had a rock solid case. I just don’t think they’re the type of people to do that.

One of the ironies here that I think everybody understands is that Democrats launched a lawfare campaign against Donald Trump. And it didn’t just start once he took office this year. It’s been going on for a decade. They have used every tool available to try to destroy him, including through criminal prosecutions, including through federal investigations, et cetera.

They’ve really tried to get him and for them now to say, oh, just because we did that to you for 10 years doesn’t give you the right to do it to us legally. That’s legall sound, I mean, you have to prove your case in court, but politically, I don’t think that’s going to fly.

Democrats screaming that Donald Trump is weaponizing prosecutors against them is not going to really impress a lot of people considering that for a decade, Democrats weaponized prosecutors against Donald Trump. So I think as to political impact here, I don’t think those sort of complaints are going to get very far.

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