Ethics officials at Fannie Mae were removed from their jobs as they investigated whether a top Trump ally improperly accessed mortgage documents of Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and other Democratic officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
William Pulte, a staunch Trump defender and the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has accused James, Adam Schiff, a California senator, and Lisa Cook, a federal reserve governor, of mortgage fraud. All three have denied the accusations and James was indicted on specious federal charges last month.
Experts have raised questions about all three referrals and see them as a thinly veiled effort by Trump to target political rivals.
After Pulte made the referrals, former agency officials and experts told the Guardian they were highly unusual. Individualized mortgage data is highly sensitive and protected. And investigations into mortgage fraud are not typically handled by the FHFA inspector general, an agency watchdog staffed with investigative agents.
Ethics and internal investigation officials at Fannie Mae, the mortgage financing provider, had received internal complaints that senior officials at FHFA had ordered employees to access the mortgage documents of James and others, the Journal reported on Tuesday. They passed on their investigation to the inspector general’s office, who subsequently forwarded it to the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. Trump installed an ally, Lindsey Halligan, in that job last month.
Halligan was unhappy to have been sent the information, which could become part of discovery she would be required to hand over to James’s lawyers, and forwarded the communication to the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter. Halligan told the Guardian on Tuesday evening this characterization was untrue and denied forwarding information to the White House.
“This is more Fake News from people who are trying to impede the criminal justice system,” a spokesperson for FHFA said in a statement. The justice department did not immediately return a request for comment.
Joe Allen, who was serving as the acting inspector general, was asked to step down from his role. The inspector general’s website currently says that the office is vacant.
About a dozen ethics and internal investigations staff from Fannie Mae were fired last month, the Journal reported, including Suzanne Libby, the agency’s chief ethics officer. Danielle McCoy, the agency’s general counsel, stepped down amid pressure, the Journal reported.
after newsletter promotion
The FHFA inspector general’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
