ICYMI: Republicans Are Turning on Bill Pulte’s Abuse of Power
ICYMI: Republicans Are Turning on Bill Pulte’s Abuse of Power
Washington, DC — A mounting body of reporting and oversight shows bipartisan unease with Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte’s conduct: Republicans on the Hill are now voicing frustration with his hard-edged tactics, while new investigations spotlight unusual criminal referrals aimed at perceived critics and apparent hypocrisy involving his own family’s tax filings.
Even inside the GOP, the alarm is audible. Politico reports Republican lawmakers privately blasting Pulte’s behavior and intra-administration brawls. That includes tensions with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and concerns over efforts that appear to bypass Congress on housing policy.
The “crime” at issue is rarely charged. A Reuters review of eight years of federal cases found only 20 prosecutions for alleged mortgage-application misstatements—and just one as a standalone case—underscoring how atypical these criminal referrals are.
Family angle deepens the credibility problem. Reuters reporting shows Pulte’s father and stepmother claimed primary residence/”homestead exemptions” in both Michigan and Florida, prompting local officials to revoke one exemption and issue revised tax bills—the same kind of conduct Pulte has spotlighted against others.
Same pattern inside the Cabinet: ProPublica documents at least three Trump Cabinet members with overlapping “primary residence” mortgages—including one who obtained two such loans in quick succession—undercutting the premise that the conduct itself signals fraud.
But the only people being charged are FHFA Director Bill Pulte’s political enemies,
Cole Leiter, Executive Director of Americans Against Government Censorship (AAGC), said:
“This isn’t oversight—it’s abuse of power. When a federal regulator trains the government’s investigative machinery on perceived adversaries over a charge the Justice Department almost never brings, while he shields his own family members and political allies from facing the same kind of enforcement, that crosses a line. The fact that Republicans are now voicing concerns should tell everyone this is bigger than one headline. This country needs neutral enforcement of the law, not politicians armed with power to abuse and an enemies-list mindset.”
Read key excerpts below and the full story HERE:
Politico: ‘He’s a nut’: Hill Republicans sour on Trump housing official Bill Pulte
Republicans on Capitol Hill are privately expressing growing discontent with a top Trump administration housing official who has thrust himself to the center of the president’s campaign against the Federal Reserve.
Bill Pulte has parlayed a niche regulatory job — director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — into celebrity status within President Donald Trump’s orbit by becoming one of his most vociferous social media attack dogs. But his antics are aggravating some more establishment figures around Trump — most notably Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who threatened to punch Pulte in the face at a private dinner last week in Washington.
Now, some Republican lawmakers are privately celebrating Bessent’s move to stand up to him.
“I think he’s a nut,” one House Republican said of Pulte. (Like others in this story, the lawmaker was granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive dynamics within the Trump administration.)
“The guy’s just a little too big for his britches,” said a second GOP lawmaker, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees housing policy and the FHFA. “I’ve got great respect for Bessent for taking him on.”
[..]
The frustration among some on Capitol Hill illustrates unease over Trump’s aggressive campaign against top Fed officials. It was Pulte who first lodged mortgage fraud allegations against Fed Gov. Lisa Cook that Trump later used to fire her. And Pulte, like Trump, has relentlessly attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell for his handling of monetary policy and the expensive renovations to the central bank’s Washington headquarters.
[...]
The frustrations with Pulte on the Hill extend beyond Fed issues or his social media antics to his handling of the most important housing policy issue on his agenda: releasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that back more than half the residential mortgage market, from government control. The Trump administration is considering putting the two firms, which Pulte oversees at FHFA, up for a public offering as soon as this year.
The House Financial Services Republican said Pulte’s view of how quickly the administration should move to take public government-sponsored enterprises is “not where the committee is.”
“We want to take a much more deliberate look at Fannie and Freddie,” the lawmaker said, adding that the Financial Services panel will “make sure” any action on the GSEs “goes through Congress.”
