There Might Be A Pattern Here

On Monday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some rather sketchy mortgage claims in Letitia James’ past.

The article includes the following:

It all began in the spring of 1983, when a 24-year-old Letitia James and her father, Robert James, posing as “husband and wife,” took out a real-estate loan for $30,300 from Kadilac Funding Ltd. for the purchase of a two-story townhome in Queens. The loan document, signed by both, listed “ROBERT JAMES AND LETITIA JAMES, HIS WIFE” in three separate places. This was no clerical error.

At that time, young Letitia likely lacked sufficient income or credit to qualify for a mortgage as a single woman. The fraudulent claim of marriage to her father allowed her to obtain financing she otherwise couldn’t have, an act that meets the legal definition of mortgage fraud under state and federal statutes.

The article includes a screenshot of part of the document involved.

The fraud continued:

In 2020, James purchased a property at 3121 Perone Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia, signing a document claiming it would be her primary or secondary residence, rather than a rental property, to secure a lower interest rate. That misrepresentation recently became part of the criminal indictment against her for mortgage and bank fraud, carrying a potential 30-year prison sentence.

In 2021, James applied for a $200,000 line of credit mortgage from Citizen’s Bank on her 5-unit apartment building in Brooklyn, but in mortgage documents James claimed it only had one apartment unit. Accordingly, James received a lower residential mortgage interest rate she was not entitled to, and avoided a higher commercial loan rate and much higher closing costs.

In 2023, James bought a home at 604 Sterling Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia. Per Sam Antar, Letitia qualified for the loan only after certifying in an updated application that it would be her “primary residence”, even though she lived in Brooklyn.

The article concludes:

Letitia James’s story illustrates the powerful psychology of rationalized fraud – how one minor deception with her father, rewarded and unpunished, can evolve into a lifelong modus operandi of criminal behavior. Over time, the boundary between being “clever” and criminal became blurred for James, warping her moral compass and creating a sense of entitlement.

The irony is staggering. Letitia James, a woman educated at Howard University and charged with enforcing justice, including mortgage laws, appears to have internalized the very behavior she has prosecuted, including the very charges she filed against her most high-profile target, Donald Trump.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Cheating To Get A Lower Mortgage Rate

On Wednesday, Hot Air reported that the Department of Justice was opening an investigation into Congressman Adam Schiff for potential mortgage fraud.

The article reports:

Democrats created the lawfare model. Adam Schiff enthusiastically promoted it. Now the model has turned on them, and on Schiff specifically.

According to Fox News host Laura Ingraham, the Department of Justice has opened a criminal probe into potential mortgage fraud involving Schiff. The allegations have floated for months, similar to those surrounding New York Attorney General Letitia James, that Schiff claimed primary residency in Maryland for personal gain while representing California in Congress:

The article quotes msn:

The investigation comes a month after a story broke about the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) sending a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleging that Schiff, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms.

In a 2011 affidavit signed by the then California congressman, Schiff certified that a property in Montgomery County, Maryland is his primary residence.

Schiff also owns a condominium in Burbank, California, which he has also claimed as his primary residence as recently as 2023, during his campaign for Senate.

The article notes:

Beege wrote about this last month, so be sure to click through and read the background on the case. This doesn’t just involve potential mortgage fraud, by the way, but could also involve tax fraud in either California or Maryland. States offer lower property tax rates for primary residences (homesteads) in exchange for the benefits communities receive when owners occupy their own properties. If Schiff claimed and received homestead benefits in both states at the same time, both states could file civil or criminal claims of tax fraud. 

Neither California nor Maryland will be likely to do that — to a Democrat, anyway. But the possibility still exists.

It is quite possible that the statute of limitations has run out as Schiff changed the Maryland property to a secondary residence in 2020, but that doesn’t change the fact that he broke the law.