The Donald Trump administration has a privileged tool to attack its political enemies.
Trump is asking members of his administration to dig through records to accuse or, in the case of New York Attorney General James, accuse people they perceive as enemies of committing mortgage fraud by obtaining a mortgage loan for a primary residence that is not the applicant’s primary residence.
PoliticusUSA is not beholden to any political party or special interest. We are 100% independent. Support us by becoming a subscriber.
It has become commonplace that Trump is guilty of what he accuses others of doing. It was only a matter of time before someone dug through Trump’s mortgage applications and found something.
What was discovered was that on several applications in Florida, Trump claimed the properties were for his primary residence, but that he did not intend to live there. The properties were intended for commercial use.
ProPublica reported:
Mortgage law experts who reviewed the filings for ProPublica were struck by the irony of Trump’s double mortgages. They said claiming primary residences on different mortgages simultaneously, as Trump did, is often legal and rarely prosecuted. But both Trump loans, they said, exceed the low bar that the Trump administration itself set for mortgage fraud.
“Given Trump’s position in situations like this, he will either have to fire himself or go to the Justice Department,” said Kathleen Engel, a law professor at Suffolk University and an expert on mortgage financing. “Trump felt that this type of misrepresentation is enough to prevent someone from serving the country.”
The Trump administration likes to talk about transparency in an Orwellian way, but Trump’s response to questions about his own mortgages was anything but transparent.
Story continues below.