Trump foe Sen. Adam Schiff eyed by DOJ in mortgage fraud probe
U.S. Attorney for Maryland He had told senior officials at the Justice Department that he did not believe there was strong enough evidence to charge Sen. Adam Schiff of California with mortgage fraud. MSNBC reported Thursday.
President Donald Trump has called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to criminally charge Schiff, a California Democrat who has been a harsh critic of the president and served as a prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes recently met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to brief him on his investigation of Schiff, MSNBC reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.
“Hayes, an experienced federal prosecutor, told Blanche he didn’t think the case against Schiff was strong,” the two people said. MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian wrote in a post on social media site X:
“The two said Ed Martin, a controversial senior Justice Department official, was pushing to keep the case alive,” Dilanian said. he wrote.
One of the people who spoke to MSNBC said that the investigation into Schiff is continuing.
The Justice Department declined to comment to CNBC about the report.
CNBC requested comment from Schiff’s attorney, Preet Bharara, the senator’s office and Hayes.
In his statement in August, Bharara stated that the allegations against Schiff were “clearly false, stale and long debunked.”
“This is the kind of thing tinpot dictators do,” Schiff said in a video statement addressing the investigation in July.
“It was designed to intimidate and somehow silence his political opponents,” Schiff said at the time.
Trump is a September 20 social media post He urged Bondi to file charges against Schiff and two other enemies, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Comey and James were indicted separately by a federal grand jury in Virginia after Erik Siebert, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned under pressure from Trump after questioning the evidence against them.
James is accused of mortgage fraud. Comey is accused of lying to Congress in his 2020 testimony.
Both deny any wrongdoing.
