The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s director, Bill Pulte, on Thursday marked Rep. Eric Swalwell as the latest foe of President Donald Trump to face a criminal referral for alleged mortgage fraud, according to multiple reports.
Swalwell, a Democrat who has long spoken out against Trump’s administrations and served as an impeachment manager during his second impeachment trial, also filed a civil lawsuit against the president and his allies in 2021 for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“As the most vocal critic of Donald Trump over the last decade and as the only person who still has a surviving lawsuit against him, the only thing I am surprised about is that it took him this long to come after me,” Swalwell said in a statement.
Pulte alleged in a letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that Swalwell may have made false or misleading statements in loan documents for his $1.2 million Washington property, NBC News first reported.
Trending
Swalwell is the fourth Democratic official to be accused of mortgage fraud by Pulte. The others include New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff and Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
A grand jury last month criminally indicted James for bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution over a Virginia property she allegedly listed as a second home but used as a rental property for her niece.
Cook was fired in August from her role at the Fed over Pulte’s allegations, though a federal court in the District of Columbia has ruled that she may remain in the role while her legal challenge remains pending. Her case has made its way to the Supreme Court, which announced it would hear oral arguments starting in December.
Trump accused Schiff of engaging in a “sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud,” in a July post on Truth Social. NOTUS reported in August that the senator formed a legal defense fund to fight the allegations.
“The allegations against Senator Schiff are transparently false, stale, and long debunked,” Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney in New York and Schiff’s lawyer for the case, wrote in a statement sent to NOTUS on Tuesday. “The bias here is glaring.”
In his statement Thursday, Swalwell says he has no plans of dropping his lawsuit against the Trump administration.
“I refuse to live in fear in what was once the freest country in the world,” Swalwell said. “Of course, I will not end my lawsuit against him. And I will not stop speaking out against the President and speaking up for Californians.”
Author
