Assault with a legal weapon
The Wall Street Journal called Trump 2.0’s weaponizing the Department of Justice to attack his enemies “an ominous turn in political lawfare.”
Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic writes that, yes, the use allegations of mortgage fraud as a weapon against Trump’s enemies seems to be the brainchild of MAGA cultist Bill Pulte at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). But Pulte denies claims he’s on a fishing expedition eben though mortgage fraud allegations against U.S. Senator Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook seem oddly targeted. I’ve seen no evidence Pulte there wa even an investigation into
Conor Friedersdorf writes:
Regularly prosecuting cases like the ones the Trump administration is grandstanding about would enmesh many unwitting wrongdoers in legal nightmares, just as the civil-libertarian attorney Harvey Silverglate warned in his 2009 book, Three Felonies a Day. In it, he distinguishes between common-law crimes such as theft, assault, and murder, which all perpetrators know to be serious transgressions, and the many federal laws that make felons out of people who don’t even realize that they are doing something wrong. “Trump’s pursuit of these mortgage fraud cases is precisely what I warned about,” Silverglate wrote to me when I reached him by email earlier this week. “This system paves the way to tyranny—a system in which, alas, I fear we find ourselves.”
You think?
Of course, there is no way that the Trump administration would agree to review the home loans of its own political appointees and fire, let alone prosecute, anyone who claimed more than one primary residence. There is no way Republicans in Congress would agree to a third-party review of their home-loan applications. The Associated Press, citing a review of public documents, reported in July that two Republican officials, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, Angela, a state senator in Texas, had signed mortgages that “contained inaccurate statements declaring that each of those three houses was their primary residence, enabling the now-estranged couple to improperly lock in low interest rates.” (Neither Ken nor Angela Paxton responded to the AP’s requests for comment.) Trump officials are treating their political enemies in a way that they’d never treat political allies, a far more serious and corrosive betrayal of the rule of law than what they are alleging that Schiff, James, and Cook have done.
Given that Trump himself was found guilty in New York state in 2023 for committing “persistent fraud by submitting false and misleading Statements of Financial Condition (“SFCs”),” it is especially rich that his attack dogs are tossing around fraud allegations for which their boss has already lost in court. A panel of five state Appeals Court judges just tossed out Judge Arthur Engoron’s $515 million in penalties and interest as excessive under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The conviction itself will likely head to the state Supreme Court. New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the lawsuit. It is hardly a coincicence that she is one of Pulte’s targets.
If it looks like a political vendetta, smells like a politcal vendetta, etc.
Trump 2.0 seems bent on proving the aphorism of former New York Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Judge Sol Wachtler (a Republican), that a district attorney could get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich” if intent on it.
Perhaps after this week, Trump 2.0 will have a harder time doing so. A grand jury in the District refused to indict the man who threw a salami sub at a federal officer.
Former U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Barbara McQuade tweeted, “I’ve never applauded jury nullification. Until now. Free DC.”
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