Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) on Tuesday accused Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pruitt of criminally misusing a government database to baselessly target political opponents of President Trump, in a fierce rebuttal to allegations of criminally misrepresenting facts on mortgage documents.
“Mr. Pulte abused his position by scouring the databases of government-backed corporations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and examining the personal mortgage records of several prominent Democrats. Mr. Pulte then used those records to fabricate fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud and prosecute them with the Department of Justice,” Swalwell’s lawyers wrote in a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C.
They said Pruitt, like Swalwell, launched an attack on Swalwell at a particularly inopportune time.
Mr. Swalwell’s lawyers said Mr. Pruitt’s attack was not only a “gross misrepresentation of reality,” but also a “gross abuse of power in violation of the law,” a violation of Mr. Swalwell’s free speech rights to criticize the president without fear of retribution, and a violation of the 1974 Privacy Act, which prohibits federal authorities from “using access to a citizen’s personal information as a means of harming a political opponent.”
Pulte, FHFA and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Pruitt has previously defended his work examining the mortgage documents of prominent Democrats, saying no one is above the law. His introduction targets Democrats exclusively, despite reports that Republicans are taking similar actions on mortgages.
One witness said Mr. Swalwell’s lawsuit is the latest counterpunch to Mr. Pruitt’s campaign, part of heightened scrutiny for its unprecedented nature and unconventional methods, not only from his targets but from other investigators as well.
In addition to Mr. Swalwell, Mr. Pulte has referred mortgage fraud charges against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in a New York court to the Justice Department. General Letitia James and Federal Reserve President Lisa Cook have both denied wrongdoing and suggested the allegations are nothing more than political retaliation.
Mr. James was criminally prosecuted in Virginia by an inexperienced loyalist federal prosecutor specially appointed by President Trump, but a judge later dismissed the case on the grounds that prosecutor Lindsey Harrigan was illegally appointed. The judge also dismissed a lawsuit against another Trump opponent, former FBI Director James Comey.
“His decision to use the FHFA to selectively and publicly investigate and target the President’s designated political opponents creates the unmistakable impression that he is improperly coordinating with the White House to fabricate flimsy predicates to initiate such investigations,” Cook’s lawyers wrote in a letter to the Justice Department.
Mr. Schiff also blasted Mr. Trump and Mr. Pulte for targeting him and other Democrats, and praised the filing of the case against Mr. James and Mr. Comey, calling it a “victory for the rule of law.”
Federal prosecutors in Maryland, where Schiff’s case is being investigated, have also begun questioning Pruitt and other Trump administration officials in recent days about their actions, said Christine Bisch, a Sacramento-area real estate agent and Republican congressional candidate who was summoned to Maryland last week to answer questions on the matter.
Mr. Prut alleged that Mr. Schiff violated the law by claiming principal residence on the mortgages in both Maryland and California. Mr. Schiff said he never broke any laws and was always upfront with mortgage lenders.
Bisch 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 and then to the FHFA tip line and the FBI earlier this year, she told the Times.
When President Trump later posted one of Schiff’s mortgage documents on his platform, Truth Social, Bish said she believed it was the one she had submitted to the FHFA and FBI because it was highlighted exactly as she had highlighted it. She then realized that she had missed Pulte’s calls, and was subsequently asked by Pulte staff to email Pulte the “complete file” she had created on Schiff.
“They wanted to make sure I sent the entire file,” 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 summons in the mail, which she interpreted last week as requiring her to be in Maryland. There, she was questioned again for about an hour by the same staff from the Office of Inspector General and another FBI agent, she said. He was surprised that their questions seemed to focus less on Schiff and more on communications with federal officials.
“They wanted to know if I was talking to anyone else,” she said. “What did I tell you? Who did I tell it to?”
Schiff’s office declined to comment. But Schiff’s lawyers previously told Justice Department officials that they and his campaign had “good grounds” to target Trump’s opponents, calling it a “highly irregular” and “despicable” effort.
The FHFA’s then-acting inspector general, Joe Allen, who first came into contact with Bisch, has since been fired, also raising questions.
On November 19, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called on Pelt to accuse his investigation of being politically motivated, questioned Allen’s firing, and demanded documents, including communications with the White House.
Swalwell’s lawyers said in Tuesday’s lawsuit that Swalwell never claimed primary residence in both California and Washington, D.C., as alleged, and did not violate any laws.
They accused Mr. Pruitt of orchestrating a coordinated effort to spread allegations against Mr. Swalwell through a vast network of conservative influencers, saying it “damaged (Mr. Swalwell’s) reputation at a critical time in his career, at the very moment he was planning to announce his campaign for governor of California.”
They said the “widespread disclosure of information about the home where his wife and young children live” also “exposed him to a safety risk and caused him significant pain and suffering.”
Swalwell said in a statement that Pruitt “combed through the personal records of political opponents” to “silence them” and should not be allowed to do so.
“There’s a reason why the First Amendment, the freedom of speech, trumps other provisions,” he said.
