In a fiery rebuttal to allegations he\u2019d criminally misrepresented facts in his mortgage documents, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday \u2014 accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to baselessly target President Trump\u2019s political opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cPulte has abused his position by scouring databases at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac \u2014 two government-sponsored enterprises \u2014 for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats,\u201d attorneys for Swalwell wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. \u201cHe then used those records to concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said Pulte launched his attack on Swalwell at a particularly inopportune time, just as Swalwell was launching his campaign for California governor<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pulte\u2019s attack, Swalwell\u2019s attorneys wrote, \u201cwas not only a gross mischaracterization of reality\u201d but \u201ca gross abuse of power that violated the law,\u201d infringing on Swalwell\u2019s free speech rights to criticize the president without fear of reprisal, and violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which they said bars federal officials from \u201cleveraging their access to citizens\u2019 private information as a tool for harming their political opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n Pulte, the FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n Pulte has previously defended his work probing mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one is above the law. His referrals have exclusively targeted Democrats, despite reporting on Republicans taking similar actions on their mortgages.<\/p>\n Swalwell\u2019s lawsuit is the latest counterpunch to Pulte\u2019s campaign, and part of mounting scrutiny over its unprecedented nature and unorthodox methods \u2014 not just from targets of his probes but from other investigators, too, according to one witness.<\/p>\n In addition to Swalwell, Pulte has referred mortgage fraud allegations to the Justice Department against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who have all denied wrongdoing and suggested the allegations amount to little more than political retribution.<\/p>\n James was criminally charged by an inexperienced, loyalist federal prosecutor specially appointed by Trump in Virginia, though a judge has since thrown out that case on the grounds that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. The judge also threw out a case against former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump opponent.<\/p>\n Cook\u2019s attorneys slammed Pulte in a letter to the Justice Department, writing that his \u201cdecision to use the FHFA to selectively \u2014 and publicly \u2014 investigate and target the President\u2019s designated political enemies gives rise to the unmistakable impression that he has been improperly coordinating with the White House to manufacture flimsy predicates to launch these probes.\u201d<\/p>\n Schiff also has lambasted Trump and Pulte for their targeting of him and other Democrats, and cheered the tossing of the cases against James and Comey, calling it \u201ca triumph of the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n In recent days, federal prosecutors in Maryland \u2014 where Schiff\u2019s case is being investigated \u2014 have also started asking questions about the actions of Pulte and other Trump officials, according to Christine Bish, a Sacramento-area real estate agent and Republican congressional candidate who was summoned to Maryland to answer questions in the matter last week.<\/p>\n Pulte has alleged that Schiff broke the law by claiming primary residence for mortgages in both Maryland and California. Schiff has said he never broke any law and was always forthcoming with his mortgage lenders.<\/p>\n Bish has been investigating Schiff\u2019s mortgage records since 2020, and had repeatedly submitted documents about Schiff to the federal government \u2014 first to the Office of Congressional Ethics, then earlier this year to an FHFA tip line and to the FBI, she told The Times.<\/p>\n When Trump subsequently posted one of Schiff\u2019s mortgage documents to his Truth Social platform, Bish said she believed it was one she had submitted to the FHFA and FBI, because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. Then, she saw she had missed a call from Pulte, and was later asked by Pulte\u2019s staff to email Pulte \u201cthe full file\u201d she had worked up on Schiff.<\/p>\n \u201cThey wanted to make sure that I had sent the whole file,\u201d Bish said.<\/p>\n Bish said she was subsequently interviewed via Google Meet on Oct. 22 by someone from the FHFA inspector general\u2019s office and an FBI agent. She then got a subpoena in the mail that she interpreted as requiring her to be in Maryland last week. There, she was interviewed again, for about an hour, by the same official from the inspector general\u2019s office and another FBI agent, she said \u2014 and was surprised their questions seemed more focused on her communications with people in the federal government than on Schiff.<\/p>\n \u201cThey wanted to know if I had been talking to anybody else,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, what did I communicate? Who did I communicate with?\u201d<\/p>\n Schiff\u2019s office declined to comment. However, Schiff\u2019s attorney has previously told Justice Department officials that there was \u201cample basis\u201d for them to launch an investigation into Pulte<\/a> and his campaign targeting Trump\u2019s opponents, calling it a \u201chighly irregular\u201d and \u201csordid\u201d effort.<\/p>\n The acting FHFA inspector general at the time Bish was first contacted, Joe Allen, has since been fired, which has also raised questions.<\/p>\n