(AP Photo/Julia DeMarie Nicholson)
president Donald Trump He is suspected of committing the same mortgage fraud that his administration is prosecuting New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to a new report from ProPublica.
Trump blamed several of his political opponents, including James and members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors Lisa Cook, Committing a “deceptive and potentially criminal” fraud by declaring multiple primary residences on a loan application. James and Cook have both denied wrongdoing. The charges against James were dismissed due to procedural errors.
But according to the nonprofit investigative organization, records show “Trump did exactly what he accused his enemies of doing.”
“In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage on a ‘Bermuda-style’ home in Palm Beach, Florida, promising that it would be his primary residence,” ProPublica’s report said. “Just seven weeks later, he obtained another mortgage to purchase a neighboring seven-bedroom, marble-floored property, certifying that it would also be his primary residence.”
The report continues:
In fact, Trump, then a New Yorker, appears to have never lived in either residence, let alone used them as his primary residence. Instead, the two houses next to his historic Mar-a-Lago estate were used as investment properties and rented out — exactly what his government pointed to as evidence of fraud, according to news reports at the time and interviews with his longtime real estate agent.
Mortgage law experts who reviewed ProPublica’s records were struck by the travesty of Trump’s double mortgage. Applying for a primary residence simultaneously with different mortgages, as Trump did, is generally legal and rarely prosecuted, they said. But they said two of Trump’s loans exceeded the low standards the Trump administration itself had set for mortgage fraud.
bill poulter, The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency raised the issue of mortgage fraud with Trump as the president attempts to prosecute his enemies. “If someone is claiming to have two primary residences, that is inappropriate and we will refer that to a criminal investigation,” Pulte declared.
Based on these criteria, mortgage finance experts Katherine EngelProPublica Sr. said Trump “either needs to fire himself or turn himself over to the Justice Department. Trump believes this type of misrepresentation is enough to prevent someone from serving the country.”
ProPublica reported that Trump hung up on a reporter “when asked whether his mortgage in Florida was similar to the mortgages of others he has accused of fraud.”
Read ProPublica’s story here.
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