Black women were the first to be named and shamed by President Donald Trump’s allegations of mortgage fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James was accused of crimes a federal grand jury refused to accept, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook was pushed into a criminal investigation that her attorneys called politically driven and unsupported by evidence.
James has been one of Trump’s most prominent critics. A judge dismissed an earlier indictment after ruling that the federal prosecutor involved had been unlawfully appointed, and a grand jury then declined to revive the case.
The attorney general called the allegations “baseless” and said she wanted “the unchecked weaponisation of our justice system to stop.”
Her lawyer Abbe Lowell said any continued effort to prosecute her would be “a shocking assault on the rule of law and a devastating blow to the integrity of our justice system.”
Cook has faced similar treatment. The Justice Department began examining her mortgages after a referral that her attorneys described as rooted in a “fundamental misconception and purposeful omission.”
They told Attorney General Pam Bondi in writing that the claims were “baseless” and that the inquiry represented a partisan attempt to damage a Federal Reserve governor the administration wanted removed. They said the investigation appeared to come from a “partisan use of the criminal referral process” and from a coordinated effort to target the president’s perceived opponents.
While Black women in public office were being accused of fraud, ProPublica’s reporting revealed that Trump and several members of his Cabinet engaged in the same conduct and in some cases behavior that exceeded what the administration called fraudulent.
Mortgage records show Trump signed two Florida loans in the 1990s in which he pledged that each property would be his principal residence, even though his real estate agent said both homes were always intended to be rentals. The agent’s wife and business partner said:“They were rentals from the beginning,” adding “President Trump never lived there.”
Advertisements from the period offered each house for rent, confirming their use as investment properties even as Trump certified them as his primary homes.
Mortgage law expert Kathleen Engel reviewed the documents and responded to ProPublica’s findings.
“Given Trump’s position on situations like this,” she said, “he is going to either need to fire himself or refer himself to the Department of Justice.”
Trump’s Cabinet members followed similar patterns. ProPublica found that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin each signed multiple primary-residence mortgages. In each case, the White House denied wrongdoing but continued to insist that identical behavior by Trump’s critics was unlawful. These Cabinet officials received favorable terms for loans they certified as primary residences, the same issue the administration used to justify criminal referrals against political adversaries, including Cook and James.
The accusations against James rested on claims that she obtained a second-home mortgage in Virginia and used the property as an investment.
Federal prosecutors have tried twice to bring a case against her and failed both times. She has denied the allegations, and the courts have blocked further action, though prosecutors have pushed for another attempt despite the grand jury’s refusal.
Cook’s situation mirrors Trump’s Florida conduct even more directly. Pulte, the administration official who initiated the referrals, pointed out that Cook signed two primary-residence mortgages within weeks. Those are the same circumstances documented in Trump’s 1990s filings, which show he certified two adjacent Florida houses as his principal residence while using them strictly as rentals. Cook has denied wrongdoing and continues to fight Trump’s attempt to remove her from the Federal Reserve Board.
Together, the public records, ProPublica investigations, and court proceedings form a clear pattern of selective enforcement. Black women who challenged the president were pushed into criminal investigations for conduct the administration portrayed as fraud, even as Trump and members of his own Cabinet took out concurrent primary-residence mortgages and benefited from the same loan structures.
Engel said the reporting raised a basic question of consistency.
“Trump has deemed that this type of misrepresentation is sufficient to preclude someone from serving the country,” she said.
