At least three members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet reportedly used the exact same mortgage financing tactic over which they attacked the Federal Reserve governor in an effort to oust her.
In August, Trump demanded that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook resign over allegations of mortgage fraud. More specifically, Cook was accused by Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte of declaring multiple homes as her primary residence. Doing so can result in lower mortgage rates. Weeks earlier, Trump accused Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of mortgage fraud by declaring a primary residence in Maryland. Schiff notably led the investigation into alleged Russian election interference.
The president also threatened to fire her if she didn’t resign, but Cook insisted that Trump did not have the authority to do so.
A week later, she filed a lawsuit against him.
But now, according to a Thursday report from ProPublica, multiple members of Trump’s cabinet have also declared multiple primary residences:
Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she’s known to vacation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.
The cabinet members denied the allegations; and a White House spokesperson called the report a “hit piece from a left-wing dark money group that constantly attempts to smear President Trump’s incredible Cabinet members.”
As noted by ProPublica, however, experts have stressed that the practice of taking out multiple primary-home mortgages is often legal. Hours prior to the report’s publication, the Justice Department official launched a criminal investigation into Cook’s financial activity.