FHFA flags Schiff to DOJ over alleged mortgage fraud on Maryland property

The Department of Justice is likely digging into Sen. Adam Schiff’s mortgage paperwork trail stretching back to a Maryland home purchase from the early 2000s as it weighs whether it has an airtight case to potentially prosecute the longtime political foe of President Donald Trump, according to a Cornell Law School professor.

“The one thing they don’t want to do is to bring a case that fails,” William Jacobson told Fox Digital in a Zoom interview, referring to the DOJ potentially investigating Schiff’s alleged mortgage fraud. Jacobson is a clinical professor and the Director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell. 

“Either it fails legally, or it fails in court. They don’t want to lose that case if you’re going against a major political opponent. And that’s part of the calculation that will take place.”

Jacobson talked about the ins and outs of the Democratic California senator’s potential legal woes following the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency sending a letter to the DOJ this year claiming that Schiff falsified banking and property documents by listing two homes – on two separate coasts – as his primary residence out of an effort to allegedly get more favorable loans. 

The DOJ has not yet said whether it would take up the case, but is likely digging into Schiff’s paper trail as it weighs whether to move forward, Jacobson explained.  

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“I would expect that the first thing the Department of Justice is going to do is to gather documents. There will be a paper trail here. There will be many things that are documentable, and not ‘he said, she said,’ as to where Adam Schiff was actually living,” he said. 

As investigators go through the documents, they will ask questions such as: What was his actual primary residence? What did he sign? Who was present when he signed? Did he have conversations with people about it?

The law professor, who founded the popular conservative legal blog Legal Insurrection, said that there will likely be a “significant paper trail” to go through due to the case stretching back more than 20 years and due to companies keeping tight records following the 2008 financial crash. 

“Mortgage companies preserve all of these things because of the financial…