Fed scandal EXPLODES: DOJ referral over 'fraud' claims

Joining me right now, the head of the U.S. Federal Housing FHFA Director and Fannie Mae Chairman Bill Pulte. I want to get your take on all of the news and of course that criminal referral that you sent over Lisa Cook and others on mortgage fraud. But first, talk to us about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What is President Trump looking to do with these mortgage originators, enormous companies?

Well the president did something great if you recall in his first term and that is doing nothing. Everybody wanted to basically steal this company from the American taxpayers and President Trump deserves great credit for saying no thank you. We are going to do what's in the best interest of people. Maria, he wanted to, he got approached rather to sell these companies for about $100 billion,

if you can believe that. A hundred and fifty—I think it's going to a trillion and potentially even higher. So President Trump has exercised great judgment, and he'll exercise, in my view, that same judgment in deciding whether or not to do something with regard to Fannie and Freddie.

Well, this is a big story. A lot of our viewers want to know about it. Investors love these companies because they're incredibly important. What are we talking about? Seven trillion dollars in assets between the two companies balance sheets?

Yeah, seven point eight trillion, and it's going higher and frankly, it's going to continue to go higher. These are, in my view, in terms of assets, the biggest companies in the world, these two biggest companies. And no other president until President Trump showed up on the scene even knew that they existed. Biden didn't really know anything existed. He certainly didn't know Fannie and Freddie existed.

We came in, there were 16,000 people working from home. We ordered them all back to work. We're getting the earnings going. Money's pouring in like never before.

And it's all because President Trump is making this a priority. And has the president decided on the lead banker to take these companies public once again? Is it gonna be a $30 billion IPO?

He has not made any decisions. That will be on his own time, in his own way, in his own form. And I would defer to the president on what or if he wants to do anything here. This is entirely up to him. He has the best instincts, frankly, of anybody I've ever met, and I've met a lot of really

successful people. So, I'm going to rely on his instincts. If he says go, we'll go. But that's entirely up to the president.

When would a deal be happening? Later this year?

We'll see. Again, that's entirely up to the president. I think we have a bunch of different options. I would say this. The demand for this product, the demand for this deal, is so significant. The president has had and we have had banks calling us. They're still calling us. I mean, you could have all of the banks in the world want this deal.

So we'll see what happens, but it's got to be done if it's done on the president's terms, and I'm very confident it will be. And frankly, I think it's going to be oversubscribed.

Yeah. And I know that executives from Bank of America and Citi and JPMorgan have been in the Oval Office trying to get this business. But I want to talk about the scandals that we're talking about as well today, because we are now looking at 10 years of scandals against President Trump. We're going to get to Lisa Cook and potential mortgage fraud in a moment, but it started

with Russia collusion, went into impeachments, indictments, even January 6th, according to Ed Martin at the DOJ. And here's what Ed Martin told me yesterday. Got to get your take on this.

Watch.

There's a group of us working on January 6th. What we've learned is that the federal government, the Department of Justice, but other aspects, targeted these citizens. They basically turned government on to make the hoax work. So I'm not talking about somebody that pushes a cop. That's a charge you can look at and charge.

I'm talking about that the FBI and others were putting American citizens on terrorism watch lists. They were auditing their IRS tax returns. They were targeting the American people. They were taking massive amounts of resources and moving them from fighting, you know, child trafficking and fighting real corruption and saying, we have to move everybody to look at the Capitol siege.

It was a political hoax that was driven by Garland, Lisa Monaco, and others. There's a guy named Robert Jackson, who is the prosecutor guy. And what you see is Lisa Monaco's Justice Department acting in ways we've never seen before. This is, and when we show all that, and we're writing reports regularly on it, it's not one aspect. The federal court system was used in a way, the jails were used in a way to punish people. They didn't do this to the terrorists after 9-11 and they were doing it to American citizens.

What about the January 6th committee? Did they destroy evidence? Is there criminality

there? Of course. We're all in that too. And trust me, a lot of people did not get a pardon that were involved in the select committee and they ought to be keeping an eye on their mailbox because there's a lot to be asked about.

I mean, Director, what they did here was put people who were going and, you know, peacefully protesting against the election on no-fly lists. And the DOJ did nothing about it. It feels like you finally have some resources in the DOJ. You've sent several criminal referrals. All the while, we actually may have witnessed mortgage fraud.

Tell me about the criminal referral that you sent to the DOJ over Lisa Cook. What did she do specifically, Bill?

Well, Lisa Cook has big problems. They're going to continue to get bigger. Her statements that she made last night, I think, only make her situation worse. It's very odd to see people try to twist backways, sideways and upside down to justify mortgage fraud. This is a very serious crime, mortgage fraud. It carries up to 30 year present sentences. I believe the president has ample cause to fire Lisa Cook. Whether he wants to do that or not is entirely up to the president.

However, we will go where mortgage fraud is. If mortgage fraud is with a Republican or a Democrat, it doesn't matter. If you commit mortgage fraud in President Trump's America, we're going to come after you. And Lisa Cook is no exception to that. I've also been very surprised, Maria, I would say, with the lack of response and the mismanagement, the continued mismanagement by Jay Powell throughout all of this.

You know, you would think when there's an alleged crime that somebody would be able to handle things properly. But unfortunately, I think Jay Powell is actually walking himself into this whole situation. He used the federal spokespeople last night, the Federal Reserve spokespeople, to circulate her statement. I don't know why anyone would support somebody having and declaring on a mortgage contract

that they have two primary residences. That is fraud, and we are going to prosecute it, and I hope that the DOJ will take it very seriously.

So, according to mortgage documents, you write to the DOJ, to Pam Bondi, that Lisa Cook falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms?

Well, of course. You can't declare that you, in her case, she had a home in Michigan, and then two weeks later she goes, she gets a loan in Michigan for her home. She declares it as her primary principal residence. And then literally, literally two weeks later, she goes to an Atlanta condo,

buys an Atlanta condo, secures a loan, and also declares that as her primary residence. We all know primary or principal, that means one. That means the lead dog. That means what house are you living in? And in this case, we have a Federal Reserve governor

who's in charge of setting interest rates, running this entire economy, right hand to Jerome Powell, committing, in my view, mortgage fraud. This can't happen. I think it gives the president enormous cause to fire her. I think she will resign. Frankly, I think she's very stupid if she doesn't resign.

Well, President Trump posted on Truth Social, Lisa Cook should resign. Bill, of course, this is on the heels of your criminal referral. You listed in that referral, how she listed two different homes as her primary residence. In a two-week period, you also sent criminal referrals over others. Now, Cook responded. She says, I have no intention of being bullied to step down.

I am gathering accurate information to answer any legitimate questions, Bill. Is that the statement you're referring to, saying that that's not adequate?

Well, not only is that not accurate, I mean, first of all, intention of being bullied. The question for Ms. Cook is very simple. Did you sign these mortgage documents? Of course she did. And then on top of that,

did she also declare primary residency in both Michigan and Atlanta? The answer is yes. So, you know, she can play this all she wants, but, you know, people are smart. And I'll tell you this right now,

this is like the most viral story in the country right now. People are sick and tired of one rule for certain people and another rule for other people. And it's got to stop. And I think it's going to stop with the Federal Reserve governor. And frankly, I would be surprised if she's not suspended by the Federal Reserve this week. I mean, why are they going into Jackson Hole talking about this nonsense? This is supposed to be the biggest week for the economy. And here we've got this circus clown running around saying that she's being bullied when really she was committing mortgage fraud.

Well, I mean, you also sent criminal referrals to others. Do you have grand juries in place for this, for Lisa Cook, for Adam Schiff?

Well we send criminal referrals all the time. That's what's funny about this is people are saying, oh, well, you know, this is selective. No, it's not. When we get mortgage fraud, we are going to prosecute it. And we are not prosecutors. So what we are going to do is we are going to refer that to the DOJ.

You know, Maria, I refer people almost every day to the Department of you commit mortgage fraud, there should be consequences. You know, this risks the rule of law. This risks the integrity of the institution that we have. This risks the safety and soundness of the mortgage bond market. We can't have that. We either have to have a safe and sound bond market that everybody agrees to certain rules, or we have to have this mayhem where a Federal Reserve governor can say that she's outside

of the law. No one is above the law.

Well, and you know, what Ed Martin said from the DOJ over the weekend when I spoke with him is that when you get a criminal referral, it opens the door to actually investigate what is going on here. And he said, when you're lying about one thing, you're often lying about something else. When you're committing a crime here,

you might be committing a crime there. So it opens up a bit of a Pandora's box.

Well, Marie, I'll tell you something that we haven't really discussed publicly, and that is we're also probing her Massachusetts property. You know, these are things where you get a tip in and then all of a sudden you learn that they have another loan here, another loan there. And it's concerning because as you know, I oversee not just Fannie and Freddie,

but I also oversee the Federal Reserve Home Loan Banks. And one of the banks that's involved in this investigation unfortunately is a member bank of the Federal Home Loan Banks. I am the regulator, President Trump. Under President Trump's leadership, I am the regulator. So I have a duty to do this. When I got Senate confirmed, I swore in my testimony that I would oversee mortgage fraud.

So we're going to go wherever the facts are. We're going to turn that over to the DOJ. And if they decide to impanel a grand jury on this, which I believe that they will, I believe that the DOJ will the president, and, frankly, even to the Federal Reserve, for this lady to stay in office.

Well, look, grand juries, what is this going to take, 18 months or something? I mean, when you get a criminal referral, this could go on now for a year.

No.

No? No. I mean, you can move very quick. I mean, look, this is a black and white situation. From my perspective, it's either did she sign these documents or not? You know, it's funny as they tried to go after President Trump on, you know, complete nonsense.

He was totally innocent. In this case, you see these signatures. Did you sign this document or did you not? And you know, she can say whatever she wants. But at the end of the day, the facts speak for themselves. And I'll tell you, this is the hottest story in the world right now, Maria, for the very reason that people get it.

You can't go and fraudulently represent things that aren't true in order to procure a loan. And the elites and the wealthy class—this is why President Trump won in a landslide, because the people are sick and tired of this crap.

Yeah. But putting mortgage fraud aside, I mean, President Trump has issues with just the ineptitude of the Fed. The president has accused Chairman Jay Powell of hurting the housing industry. He said this on Truth Social, could somebody please inform Jerome Too-Late Powell that he is hurting the housing industry very badly? People can't get a mortgage because of him.

There is no inflation and every sign is pointing to a major rate cut. Bill, if we were to see a rate cut next month, the president will obviously, you know, be able to say, look, I told you so. But are we talking about a bloated situation, regardless of whether we're getting cuts at all? They put all that money into the new headquarters. I was told—I mean, I'm about to interview Christine Lagarde at the European Central

Bank, and I'd like to know how different the ECB is to the Fed. I mean, the Fed has how many branches? How many offices? How much money spent just on headquarters?

Well, it's crazy, but first I want to just distinguish, Maria. First I just want to distinguish, Maria, if this is okay. I want to put the regulator hat and the other hat aside for a second with regard to Lisa Cook, because obviously those are alleged crimes. So let's shift into the political side of things. I think those are very important to keep different. As it relates to the political side of things, and as it relates to policy, which is what

you're talking about in terms of interest rates, he has gotten this so wrong that I'm very concerned with the damage that it's doing to the housing market. And I think it will do damage to the housing market for up to two years after he's gone. So time is of the essence with regard to cutting these rates. We've already seen homebuilders laying off people. We've seen homebuilders restrict supply. This may be in the best interest of homebuilders, but it's not in the best interest of Americans.

The rates, the interest rates need to be at 1%. And frankly, I hope that whoever becomes Fed chair takes them down to 1%, if not lower. We have a president who's extremely competent. The president is unlike Biden. Biden didn't even know what inflation was. This president came in and crushed inflation.

So you have a president that will continue to crush inflation. He will continue to keep inflation low. Rates need to be at zero or 1% at the highest.

Yeah, well, you don't see a lot of that in the mainstream media, that's for sure. They completely missed the point when Joe Biden sent inflation to 40-year highs. 9.1%, we're all the way back down to 2% under President Trump. Bill, we're going to be watching your work. Obviously, huge story. We appreciate your time this morning.

We appreciate your time this morning. Thank you, sir.