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ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they\u2019re published.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator and a state attorney general.<\/p>\n
Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time is often legal and rarely prosecuted.<\/p>\n
But if administration officials continue the campaign, mortgage records show there\u2019s another place they could look: Trump\u2019s own Cabinet.<\/p>\n
Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump\u2019s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.<\/p>\n
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she\u2019s known to vacation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.<\/p>\n
In a flurry of interviews and rapid-fire posts on X, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has led the charge in accusing Trump opponents of mortgage fraud. \u201cIf somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,\u201d Pulte said last month.<\/p>\n
A political donor to the president and heir to a housing company fortune, Pulte\u2019s posts online tease big developments and criminal referrals, drawing reposts from Trump himself and promises of swift consequences. \u201cFraud will not be tolerated in President Trump\u2019s housing market,\u201d Pulte has warned.<\/p>\n
Real estate experts told ProPublica that, in its bid to wrest control of the historically independent Fed and go after political enemies, the Trump administration has mischaracterized mortgage rules. Its justification for launching criminal investigations, they said, could also apply to the Trump Cabinet members.<\/p>\n
All three Cabinet members denied wrongdoing. In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: \u201cThis is just another hit piece from a left-wing dark money group that constantly attempts to smear President Trump\u2019s incredible Cabinet members. Unlike [Fed Gov.] Lisa \u2018Corrupt\u2019 Cook who blatantly and intentionally committed mortgage fraud, Secretary DeRemer, Secretary Duffy, and Administrator Zeldin own multiple residences, and they have followed the law and they are fully compliant with all ethical obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,\u201d said Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director.<\/span><\/p>\n Mortgages for a person\u2019s main home tend to receive more favorable terms than for a second home or an investment property. That includes better interest rates and the ability to borrow more money.<\/p>\n The idea is that borrowers are more likely to pay back \u2014 and less likely to default on \u2014 a loan attached to the home they actually live in. That makes those loans less risky for lenders. Interest rates are typically a quarter- to a half-point lower for primary mortgages, according to Pulte. On the low end, that could save around $75 each month over the life of a 30-year, 5% interest, half-million-dollar loan \u2014 or a total of around $25,000.<\/p>\n Standard mortgage documents commonly include an occupancy clause that requires the borrower to use the property as their principal residence for at least a year. They also include a section where borrowers can check a box when the mortgage is for a second home.<\/p>\n Misrepresenting occupancy status is not rare, according to a widely cited 2023 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. In interviews, real estate lawyers said that mortgage lenders are typically well aware of their clients\u2019 other loans and sometimes even encourage the primary-residence language for second homes.<\/p>\n They also pointed to a mundane reason that innocent mistakes are common: Homebuyers simply sign stacks of forms without reading them.<\/p>\n \u201cFew consumers understand this issue, and if there is someone at fault here, it is likely the loan officer who likely advised them to sign up for this loan that obviously wasn\u2019t for their primary residence,\u201d said real estate lawyer Doug Miller. \u201cLoan officers who are competing for business will often quote lower rates in order to get a customer\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n Mortgage fraud is rarely prosecuted, according to real estate lawyers and federal sentencing data. Pulte has pointed to a case from 2016 in which a California woman was found guilty of obtaining multiple loans for condos that she falsely stated would be her primary residence. But that case had an added layer of fraud: The woman never intended to live in the homes. She was secretly being paid because she had good credit to act as a front for the true buyer of the properties, to whom they were later transferred. She later defaulted on the loans, causing more than half a million dollars in losses for the lenders.<\/p>\n Lawyers told ProPublica that determining ill intent would be key to prosecute. \u201cFraud requires the borrower to be aware that the borrower was making a false representation,\u201d said Jon Goodman, an attorney focused on real estate at Frascona, Joiner, Goodman and Greenstein.<\/p>\n But Pulte has framed the issue in black-and-white terms: \u201cYour second home is not your primary home,\u201d he warned in one recent post on X. <\/p>\n By that standard, Trump\u2019s labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer, could be in the wrong.<\/p>\n In her financial disclosure form, she listed two mortgages on personal residences, both obtained in 2021. Mortgage records show her home is in Happy Valley, a city near Portland where Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor before being elected to represent the area in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n She and her husband, Shawn DeRemer, who leads an anesthesia company in Portland, refinanced their longtime Oregon home in January 2021. Two months later, the couple bought a newly built house near a golf course in Fountain Hills, Arizona.<\/p>\n The pair had previously enjoyed vacationing in Arizona, according to news reports and social media posts. (In one incident that made the news, Chavez-DeRemer was briefly hospitalized after a golf cart accident on her way back from watching a Sonoran Desert sunset.)<\/p>\n The mortgage agreement for the Arizona property required them to occupy the home as their \u201cprincipal residence\u201d for at least a year, barring \u201cextenuating circumstances\u201d or the lender allowing them to violate the stipulation.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Chavez-DeRemer said that the couple bought the Arizona home with the intent to retire there, but then Chavez-DeRemer decided to run for Congress representing her Oregon district and did not move.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is nothing more than a left-wing rag inventing a story just to attack the Trump Administration. It\u2019s common for families to refinance then buy a home with future plans in mind \u2014 trying to spin that as some type of scandal is pure nonsense,\u201d said spokesperson Courtney Parella.<\/p>\n In response to questions from ProPublica, a White House official said that although DeRemer opted to stay in Oregon, her husband \u201ccontinued to move forward with the process of becoming\u201d an Arizona resident. Political donation records list his home in Oregon as recently as late 2023.<\/p>\n Duffy, Trump\u2019s transportation secretary, and his wife also have two primary-residence mortgages, obtained a few years apart.<\/p>\n In August 2021, the Duffys, who have nine children, purchased a large $2 million home in Far Hills, New Jersey, about an hour\u2019s drive from Manhattan, where Rachel Campos-Duffy works as a Fox News host.<\/p>\n They got a $1.6 million mortgage to purchase the property, and documents show it was a \u201cprincipal residence\u201d loan.<\/p>\n In February, after Duffy took the job in Trump\u2019s cabinet, the couple bought another home, in Washington, D.C. Again, they got a principal-residence mortgage, this time for $1.76 million. Both Duffy and his wife are listed as borrowers on both mortgages, which came from the same bank.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear where Sean Duffy lives most of the time, and a Department of Transportation spokesperson declined to answer questions about where Duffy and his wife each make their primary home. In late May, several months after they purchased the Washington home, \u201cFox & Friends Weekend\u201d ran a segment in which Rachel Campos-Duffy cooked a \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d breakfast for host Steve Doocy. Sean Duffy and some of the couple\u2019s children were also in the segment, and it was filmed in the New Jersey home.<\/p>\n From left: \u201cFox & Friends Weekend\u201d host Steve Doocy with Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy in their home in Far Hills, New Jersey<\/span><\/p>\n Duffy\u2019s spokesperson said in a statement that after being confirmed, \u201cSean purchased a home in Washington D.C. where he works full-time. The home in DC is not a rental, investment or vacation property. The same bank holds both mortgages and was fully informed of Secretary Duffy\u2019s new employment location and need for a DC residence.\u201d<\/p>\n A White House spokesperson said, \u201cThe bank, not the Secretary, determined and classified both mortgages as primary residences.\u201d <\/p>\n Like the Duffys, Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, and his wife also have two concurrent primary-residence mortgages.<\/p>\n One, obtained in 2007, is on a home in Shirley, New York, on Long Island, which Zeldin represented in Congress for several years. Last year, Zeldin and his wife obtained a second mortgage, for $712,500, on a property in Washington, D.C., a short walk from the EPA\u2019s headquarters. Both are primary-residence mortgages.<\/p>\n An EPA spokesperson said in a statement that Zeldin\u2019s primary residence was previously on Long Island but is now in Washington. The spokesperson didn\u2019t respond to questions about where his wife lives. \u201cAdministrator Zeldin followed ALL steps to complete the move in accordance with all laws, rules, and contracts, notifying his mortgage company, insurance company, and local government,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cEVERY \u2018I\u2019 was dotted and \u2018t\u2019 was crossed 1000% by the book without exception.\u201d<\/p>\n The dual mortgages identified by ProPublica among Trump\u2019s cabinet secretaries resemble the loans obtained by U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, whom Trump accused of mortgage fraud.<\/p>\n In May, Pulte referred Schiff to the Justice Department for taking out a primary-residence mortgage in Maryland, for a home he purchased in 2003 after being elected to the House, while also claiming his primary home was in Burbank, California, in the district he represented. Schiff and his wife refinanced the Maryland home several times as a primary residence, Pulte noted, until a 2020 refinance in which they reclassified it as a secondary home.<\/p>\n \u201cSchiff appears to have falsified records in order to receive favorable loan terms,\u201d Pulte concluded in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n Representatives for Schiff called the allegations \u201ctransparently false\u201d and said his lenders had \u201cfull knowledge of the senator\u2019s year-round bicoastal work obligations\u201d and \u201chis use of two homes for that reason.\u201d Schiff, according to his office, navigated the two mortgages in consultation with a House lawyer.<\/p>\n Pulte made similar allegations in a criminal referral about New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleging she may have committed fraud by getting a primary-residence mortgage for a home in Virginia, even though her position required her to live in New York. Her lawyer has said James helped a family member buy the property and notified the mortgage broker at the time that it would not be her primary residence. James became one of Trump\u2019s top political enemies after she brought a fraud lawsuit against the president and his company in 2022. Representatives for James have called the fraud claims made against her politically motivated and false. (Pulte did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica.)<\/p>\n Pulte\u2019s most consequential allegations thus far were made against Cook, a Federal Reserve governor. Trump has been going after Fed Chair Jerome Powell for months for not lowering interest rates, even raising the specter that he would take the unprecedented step of attempting to fire the chair. Pulte\u2019s criminal referral against Cook presented Trump with another avenue for bending the traditionally independent Fed to his will, securing a majority of the Fed\u2019s board by firing Cook, a move that Cook has sued to block.<\/p>\n Pulte pointed to mortgage records that show that within just a couple of weeks, Cook signed primary-residence mortgages for homes in Michigan and Georgia. Legal experts said the close proximity was a red flag but that much was still unknown, including Cook\u2019s intent and what her lenders were told. Pulte also flagged a third property, in Massachusetts, that Cook represented as a second home in mortgage documents but as an investment property in subsequent financial disclosures. Investment properties can be hit with higher mortgage rates than second homes.<\/p>\n \u201c3 strikes and you\u2019re out,\u201d he posted on X.<\/p>\n Cook\u2019s lawyers have denied that she committed mortgage fraud but have not provided a detailed explanation of the context for the various mortgages. They argued in court this week that her loans cannot be legally used as grounds to terminate her.<\/p>\n \n Pentagon Warns Microsoft: Company\u2019s Use of China-Based Engineers Was a \u201cBreach of Trust\u201d<\/strong>\n <\/p>\n The Justice Department has begun investigating all three Trump foes singled out in Pulte\u2019s referrals, according to news reports. The department has issued subpoenas in Cook\u2019s case, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.<\/p>\n ProPublica\u2019s review of mortgage agreements by Trump cabinet officials shows that some made clear to lenders they were purchasing second homes.<\/p>\n When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for example, got a mortgage for his home near the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, the agreement included a rider making it clear he would be using it as a second home.<\/p>\n Do you have any information that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.<\/p>\n Brandon Roberts and Steve Suo of ProPublica and Matthew Termine of Hunterbrook Media contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they\u2019re published. The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers. 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