DOJ denies MSNBC claims about Schiff mortgage fraud case not being strong enough

The Justice Department’s second-in-command “unequivocally” shot down a report by an MSNBC reporter who had claimed that the top federal prosecutor in Maryland had told DOJ leadership that a case against Adam Schiff was not strong enough to lead to charges.

Sen. Schiff, D-Calif., is currently being investigated in Maryland over allegations of possible mortgage fraud. Ken Dilanian, the justice and intelligence correspondent for MSNBC, tweeted on Thursday that “Kelly Hayes, the U.S. Attorney in Maryland, met in recent days with Todd Blanche, the deputy Attorney General, to update him on the Schiff case” and that “Hayes told Blanche she did not think the case against Schiff was strong.”

Blanche, the deputy attorney general under Attorney General Pam Bondi, shot the story down.

“Breaking: @DilanianMSNBC reports on a recent meeting that never happened,” Blanche tweeted. “Can you ask your two ‘sources’ for more info? I’m genuinely curious. Excited to hear more about this made-up meeting! Also, unequivocally: U.S. Attorney Hayes has told me no such thing.”

Dilanian had followed up his Thursday tweet with a statement from Schiff lawyer and former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, who claimed that “it seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”

U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes is a veteran DOJ prosecutor who is also overseeing the prosecution of former Trump national security advisor John Bolton over the mishandling of classified information.

“She expressed to Blanche, we are told, that she does not believe that this is a strong case, that she does not believe that this is a case that can be won, and not a case that the Justice Department should move forward with,” Dilanian claimed on MSNBC on Thursday, shortly before Blanche shot the story down.

Just the News reported in 2024 that Schiff repeatedly declared in mortgage and election filings that both of his homes – one in California and the other in Maryland – were his "principal residence." The claims prompted an ethics complaint and could be prosecutable as fraud, experts said.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte reportedly sent a letter to Bondi and Blanche in May about Schiff’s alleged misconduct.

"Based on media reports, Mr. Adam B. Schiff has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property," Pulte wrote in the letter, according to Fox News. "As regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, we take very seriously allegations of mortgage fraud or other criminal activity. Such misconduct jeopardizes the safety and soundness of FHFA’s regulated entities and the security and stability of the U.S. mortgage market." 

Pulte reportedly received a memo from Fannie Mae financial crimes investigators in July concluding that Schiff allegedly conducted "a sustained pattern of possible occupancy misrepresentation" on five Fannie Mae loans.

Schiff, who previously served as the ranking member and then chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) before ascending to the Senate, pushed false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion for many years, and touted British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier — even reading multiple baseless claims from it into the congressional record in March 2017.

Just the News also reported earlier this year that a career intelligence officer who worked for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee for more than a decade repeatedly warned the FBI beginning in 2017 that Schiff had approved leaking classified information to smear Trump over the now-debunked Russiagate scandal, according to FBI memos that Director Kash Patel turned over to Congress. Schiff denied wrongdoing.

President Donald Trump responded to the mortgage fraud news by blasting Schiff in July.

“Adam Schiff is a THIEF! He should be prosecuted, just like they tried to prosecute me, and everyone else — The only difference is, WE WERE TOTALLY INNOCENT, IT WAS ALL A GIANT HOAX!” Trump said on Truth Social that month.

“I have always suspected Shifty Adam Schiff was a scam artist,” Trump also wrote on social media in July. “And now I learn that Fannie Mae’s Financial Crimes Division have concluded that Adam Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud. Adam Schiff said that his primary residence was in MARYLAND to get a cheaper mortgage and rip off America, when he must LIVE in CALIFORNIA because he was a Congressman from CALIFORNIA. I always knew Adam Schiff was a Crook.”

Schiff denied wrongdoing at the time, tweeting, “This is just Donald Trump’s latest attempt at political retaliation against his perceived enemies. So it is not a surprise, only how weak this false allegation turns out to be.”

Ed Martin, now the Director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, told Fox News in August that the investigation into Schiff was ongoing.

“There’s a referral from Bill Pulte about mortgage fraud about Adam Schiff. That’s publicly discussed. His own lawyers have been out there,” Martin said, before adding, “Now there’s more on Adam Schiff.”

Schiff said through his spokesperson, Marisol Samayoa, that month that “it’s clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable.”

The Democratic senator also went on Meet the Press that month to again deny the allegations.

“They’re patently false, and the president knows it… and Pulte knows it. He’s essentially doing the president’s bidding against me,” Schiff said, adding, “Mortgage is their new weapon to go after their critics... There’s no there there. … They will manufacture anything to go after their critics.”

Pulte responded to Schiff’s denials by tweeting, “Fraud is bad, no matter who does it. I will not be intimidated.”

Just the News reported in 2024 about the allegations of Schiff’s mortgage fraud.

Americans are allowed to claim just one home as their primary residence: the one they live in the majority of the year, according to the federally backed lender Freddie Mac.

But Schiff alternately declared both of his properties in the two different states as “principal” on multiple mortgage and election forms dating to 2003 and reviewed by Just the News.

Those declarations over the years won him financial and political benefits like lower mortgage interest rates, tax advantages and the ability to run for election in a California House district.

In at least three instances, documents show that in 2009 and again in 2011 and 2013, Schiff refinanced his Maryland home and declared it was his “principal residence” at the same time he had declared his principal residence was in California, according to 2009 and 2011 financing records for his Burbank condo.

The conflicting declarations were allegedly not resolved until 2020, when Schiff suddenly changed the notations on his Maryland mortgage to be a secondary residence.

Schiff had baselessly claimed in August 2018 that “I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy” between Trump and Russia “in plain sight.” Schiff then claimed again in April 2019 that “I’ve been very clear over the past year, year and a half, that there is ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.”

Robert Mueller’s special counsel report in March 2019 “did not establish” any criminal collusion between Trump and Russia.

Ahead of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, Schiff attempted to shoot down the October 2020 New York Post stories on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings in China and Ukraine by falsely claiming on CNN that “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.”

Durham’s 2023 report concluded that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” The special counsel assessed that “the FBI ignored the fact that at no time before, during, or after Crossfire Hurricane were investigators able to corroborate a single substantive allegation in the Steele dossier reporting.”