Swalwell suit alleges abuse of power in Trump official’s mortgage probes

In a fiery rebuttal to allegations that he criminally misrepresented facts in his mortgage filings, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) sued Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte on Tuesday, accusing him of criminally misusing government databases to baselessly target President Trump’s political opponents.

“Pulte abused his position by combing the databases of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – two government-sponsored enterprises – looking for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats,” Swalwell’s lawyers wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, DC. “He then used these records to concoct fanciful claims of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.”

They said Pulte launched his attack on Swalwell at a particularly inopportune time, just as Swalwell was launching his campaign for governor of California.

Pulte’s attack, Swalwell’s lawyers wrote, “was not only a gross misrepresentation of reality” but “a blatant abuse of power that violated the law,” infringing on Swalwell’s right to criticize the president without fear of retaliation, and violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which they say prohibits federal officials “from exploiting their access to citizens’ private information as a tool to harm their political opponents.”

Pulte, the FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

Pulte has previously defended his work investigating the mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one was above the law. His references have exclusively targeted Democrats, despite reports that Republicans have taken similar steps regarding their mortgages.

Swalwell’s trial is the latest counterattack in Pulte’s campaign and comes amid growing scrutiny of his unprecedented nature and unorthodox methods — not only from the targets of his investigations, but also from other investigators, according to one witness.

In addition to Swalwell, Pulte 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, all of whom have denied any wrongdoing and suggested the allegations amounted to little more than political retaliation.

James was criminally charged by a loyalist and inexperienced federal prosecutor specially appointed by Trump in Virginia, although a judge has since dismissed that case on the grounds that the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed. The judge also threw out the case against former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump opponent.

Cook’s lawyers criticized Pulte in a letter to the Justice Department, writing that his “decision to use the FHFA to selectively – and publicly – investigate and target the President’s designated political enemies gives rise to the unmistakable impression that he poorly coordinated with the White House to fabricate flimsy predicates to launch these investigations.”

Schiff also lambasted Trump and Pulte for targeting him and other Democrats, and praised the dropping of charges against James and Comey, calling it a “triumph of the rule of law.”

In recent days, federal prosecutors in Maryland — where Schiff’s case is being investigated — have also begun 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 on the topic last week.

Pulte alleged that Schiff broke the law by claiming his primary residence for mortgages in Maryland and California. Schiff said he has never broken any laws and is always forthcoming with his mortgage lenders.

Bish has been investigating Schiff’s mortgage records since 2020 and has repeatedly submitted documents about Schiff to the federal government — first to the Office of Congressional Ethics, then earlier this year to an FHFA tip line and the FBI, she told the Times.

When Trump later posted one of Schiff’s mortgage documents on his Truth Social platform, Bish said she believed it was the one she had submitted to the FHFA and the FBI because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. Then she saw that she had missed a call from Pulte, and Pulte staff then asked her to send Pulte “the complete file” she had worked on on Schiff.

“They wanted to make sure I sent the entire package,” Bish said.

Bish said she was then interviewed via Google Meet on Oct. 22 by someone from the FHFA Office of Inspector General and an FBI agent. She then received a subpoena in the mail that she interpreted as requiring her to travel to Maryland last week. There, she was questioned again, for about an hour, by the same official from the inspector general’s office and another FBI agent, she said — and was surprised that their questions seemed more focused on her communications with people within the federal government than on Schiff.

“They wanted to know if I had spoken to anyone else,” she said. “You know, what did I communicate? Who did I communicate with?”

Schiff’s office declined to comment. However, Schiff’s lawyer previously told Justice Department officials that they had “sufficient basis” to launch an investigation into Pulte and his campaign targeting Trump’s opponents, calling it a “highly irregular” and “sordid” effort.

The FHFA’s acting inspector general at the time Bish was first contacted, Joe Allen, has since been fired, which also raised questions.

On Nov. 19, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) — the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — wrote a letter to Pulte denouncing his investigations as politically motivated, questioning Allen’s firing and demanding documents from Pulte, including all communications he had with the White House.

Swalwell’s lawyers wrote in Tuesday’s lawsuit that he never claimed primary residence in California and Washington, D.C., as alleged, and that he did not break any laws.

They accused Pulte of orchestrating a coordinated effort to spread the allegations against Swalwell through a vast network of conservative influencers, which they said was “harmful.” [Swalwell’s] reputation at a critical moment in his career: just as he had planned to announce his campaign for governor of California.

They said the “widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside” had also “exposed him to increased security risks and caused him considerable anxiety and distress”.

Swalwell said in a statement that Pulte had been “combing through the private files of political opponents” to “silencing them,” which should not be allowed.

“There’s a reason the First Amendment – ​​freedom of speech – comes before all others,” he said.