Trump’s Mortgage Crusade Circles Back to His Own Cabinet

The Trump administration’s so-called mortgage fraud crackdown may suffer from a boomerang problem.

The president and his allies have been hammering political foes with allegations of mortgage fraud for claiming more than one “primary residence,” but the same loan arrangements show up in his own Cabinet, ProPublica reported.

An investigation found Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin all hold mortgages that list multiple homes as their primary residences. It’s the very practice Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency chief Bill Pulte have cast as fraud when it involves Democrats or other adversaries.

“If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,” Pulte said in August.

Chavez-DeRemer and her husband refinanced their longtime Oregon home in 2021, then two months later took out another primary-residence loan for a golf course-adjacent house in Fountain Hills, Arizona. The mortgage agreement required the couple to occupy the desert property as their main home for at least a year, but she ultimately stayed in Oregon to run for Congress.

A spokesperson said the Arizona home was bought with retirement in mind and called the criticism “pure nonsense.”

Duffy bought a $2 million New Jersey home in 2021 with a $1.6 million primary mortgage. After joining Trump’s Cabinet this year, he and his wife closed on another home in Washington, D.C., backed by a $1.76 million primary-residence loan from the same bank.

The couple’s true primary residence is unclear, though they have appeared in media segments filmed at the New Jersey house. A spokesperson insisted the lender classified both mortgages with full knowledge of Duffy’s work in D.C.

Zeldin, who represented Long Island in Congress before joining the administration, holds a 2007 primary residence mortgage on his Shirley, New York, home. Last year, he and his wife secured a second primary loan for a house near EPA headquarters in D.C.

The agency, said Zeldin, relocated his residence fully to Washington and complied “1000% by the book.”

Trump officials dismissed ProPublica’s findings as a partisan smear, pointing instead to Democrats like Fed Governor Lisa Cook and New York AG Letitia James, who have been formally referred for criminal investigation.

But real estate lawyers told ProPublica such dual-primary mortgages are common, often encouraged by lenders and are rarely prosecuted.

— Holden Walter-Warner