It's so tiring watching the media pretend not to understand something.
Loan estimates are completely irrelevant when we're talking about fraud on the actual mortgage paperwork. Are we expecting authorities to demand (and consider) documents that aren't even part of the actual process?
I know Orange Man Bad and all that, but whose fault is it that Cook lied on her application? Not Trump's.
I'm with you. I can't believe that people think banks just hand out money. They don't. They expect to be repaid.
An inflated valuation on an asset is easy to verify and rates are adjusted accordingly, but if someone says a home is going to be their primary residence, the only thing they have to go on is their statement. Cook deliberately misrepresented the intended use of the properties to get a better rate.
Are you f’ing kidding me? Trump came off like a bandit by lying shamelessly on every single loan application he ever filed. In exchange he received significantly lower interest rates and came ahead of people who filled their forms honestly. People go to jail for that all of the time.
Under the category of pretending not to understand something, let me show you where your post went wrong. If a loan seeker tells the bank that the collateral property is worth $1 million and the bank says the property is worth $950,000 to $1,050,000, and an incompetent judge says it worth $100,000, the only one lying is the judge.
Especially when the judge is using a tax assessment that was limited by law to a certain increase every year. The assessment was literally unable to keep up with the increasing valuation of the estate.
Ummm Trump has faced the music? He’s become the undisputed King of the Grift. Will leave office the richest man in the world. A little lawfare- wah wah.
I have no earthly idea if he was "lying shamelessly on every single loan application he ever filed". But as an almost 40-year commercial appraiser, I can say that no lending institution that has ever engaged me, and I've worked as a fee appraiser for some of the largest, has taken the word of a borrower as to the market value of their collateral.
I never heard MSM or Schumer or Schiff claim he lied on every single loan application he ever filed. How did you obtain that info? Did you share it with Schiff, Schumer, MSM? You should. That's powerful stuff.
Banks perform due diligence, and they dig deep on large loans. They don't take anyone at their word. You can claim that your assets include a goose laying golden eggs in your backyard, but until the bank can verify that, it means nothing. The rates Trump International got on their loans were those that the banks offered after evaluating the risk and appraising the asset(s). He didn't get a significantly lower interest rate. He got the rate that his company's credit and the pledged assets could guarantee. Banks answer to boards, stockholders, and regulators. Trump paid back the loans that were made on time and in full.
Donald Trump is currently prohibited from doing business in NY. He was utterly toxic in the late 90s, having burned through the $400 million that Daddy slid him under the table. The two things that saved him were mysterious loans and ‘purchases’ coming from Russia and The Apprentice. Trump is a conman, people con banks all the time and, guess what? sometimes individuals in the banks are in on it. But it doesn’t matter when you lie as shamelessly as he did, claiming some properties were three times the size listed resulting in millions of dollars for the con man— they are fair game.
And yet the banks agreed to the loans and were paid in full and on time, so exactly who was the injured party here? Well, except the people who are always butt-hurt about anything Trump.
I mean, my hate for Trump and his business dealings goes pretty far back and is tied to what he did in Atlantic City, but... come on... you really need to put that pipe down. You really don't know much about what you are spewing here.
That, or you've just never been around people in this class and how they use leverage in business and real estate. People on the Forbes list don't operate on our wavelength. They should, but the rules of us mortals don't apply here.
As someone who actually is involved in this industry, I would add to Eric's point that it is meaningless to cite that the Freddie average was lower. It is just that, an average and without knowing if Cook was getting a higher rate to lower closing costs or knowing whether her rate was higher because she was putting less down or had a lower credit score or some combination of the two, one really can't draw any conclusion from the difference. The only useful comparison would be to see the Credit Union's rate sheet for the day she locked in including rates for both single family owner occupied and second homes. It is a sliding scale and the rate may have been close to the Freddie average if she were paying a point but if she was trying to trade a higher rate to reduce closing costs (out of pocket costs), it could easily match the rate she actually got. A lot of people do that- they will take a rate a half point higher to get thousands in credit to offset closing costs and thus out of pocket expenses. It is especially so in cases where they are trying to buy multiple properties in a short period of time. Oh, and mortgage fraud is a big deal. We had a banking crisis 17 years ago in part because of mortgage fraud, poorly underwritten loans, greedy Wall Streeters and others securitizing those loans, and bad government policy but a lot people lied about their income and other things to get loans for sure. And most of these loans, including the ones Cook got, are backed by the government through Fannie and Freddie Mac. That is why they come under Pulte's purview.
BTW, the CNBC piece is written not like a true journalist but like defense counsel for Cook. Like they are trying to create reasonable doubt in the jury, not trying to find the truth for the public. The Financial Times piece is also crap. OK, the Loan Estimate says vacation home. Show us the doc and what interest rate is quoted there. I would bet the discussion after that was what can be done to get a lower rate and someone asked if it was possible Cook might occupy the house and it was intimated that could yield a better rate. Instead we get a snippet of the document and defense counsel like spin from the Times. If the final docs said all said principal residence then the Loan Estimate is further evidence of the fraud.
I said this at the time. The media's reporting was quite ridiculous. A tax representation and a mortgage application are completely different things, and telling the truth on one doesn't prove you didn't lie on the other.
Especially when the financial benefit of one lie is bigger than the other.
Yes. She lied on the document where the lie could help her get approved and get a lower rate. If she didn't lie on a document where she would gain nothing from the lie, so what! Journalists who portray this as evidence that she did nothing wrong are genuinely stupid, or highly partisan. I suppose they could be both...
A bigger question they're ignoring with great deliberation is where in the constitution are these "independent" agencies described? Which article? They speak as if it is axiomatic the fed shouldn't be subject to "political influences", yet aren't these the same people who constantly carp about "our democracy"? How is an incredibly powerful but completely unaccountable agency in any way democratic? That's the story they're really burying.
innocent until proven guilty…buuuut, i don’t see how this isn’t mortgage fraud. and any sort of fraud is a “crime of moral turpitude.” lawyers are disbarred for this all the time. she’s not a lawyer, but her job at Federal Reserve requires public trust in a similar way.
the right thing to do would be to step out of the position, but that’s not gonna happen b/c Dems want to use her as a cudgel to hit Trump with—if he’d kept a low-profile this likely would’ve resolved with his preferred outcome. ugh.
I am a real estate attorney who has been in practice for 30 years. I served as an expert witness at a trial involving mortgage fraud allegedly perpetrated during the run-up to the Great Financial Crisis. Federal mortgage fraud is not "fraud" in the usual sense because the government doesn't have to prove the "fraudster" benefitted from the "fraud" or that the "victim" relied on the "fraudulent" misrepresentation. All that must be proved is that the defendant made a material false statement in the course of procuring a loan. Stating in closing documents in successive transactions that the defendant intended to occupy the premises as his/her primary residence is a material falsehood, beyond fair argument. Lots of people went to jail for less in the aftermath of the GFC.
Now I am concerned that there is fraud here. Every 'fact' cited in these articles is complete bullshit. Take the mortgage rate: If you were looking at averages, the average in the state of MI or GA would be better, but still worthless. Mortgage rates are borrower specific (credit score, borrowing history, income level, property you're borrowing against, etc.), not set by a state average.
What she put on the disclosure forms is also useless. The only thing that matters is what is on the loan application. Ms. Cook has to know this. Has anybody checked state tax returns to see if she claimed homestead credits on both properties (I don't know about GA, but in MI homesteading gets you a nice property tax break)?
Purchasing two properties so close together (weeks?) would make claiming primary on both difficult to justify as an 'I forgot' mistake. All this is for a .25 point break on your mortgage rate.
In the past, a Fed Governor caught in outright fraud (have not seen the loan apps, so...) would have quietly resigned, thereby preserving 'Fed Independence'. It is Cook that has risked the institutional independence of the Fed, not Trump. For a .25% lower mortgage rate on one of the properties, just stupid...
Getting loan estimates for the property as a main residence (because that's loan she got), and as a vacation home just makes her look more guilty because the difference in rates between the two is right in front of her.
The issue is NOT Fed independence. The law says the president can remove a Fed governor with cause. Clearly, lying on the mortgage application is a fraud and a crime. That is undoubtedly cause for removal.
SCOTUS will uphold the firing, and base it on “cause” and avoid the issue of Fed independence.
It's so tiring watching the media pretend not to understand something.
Loan estimates are completely irrelevant when we're talking about fraud on the actual mortgage paperwork. Are we expecting authorities to demand (and consider) documents that aren't even part of the actual process?
I know Orange Man Bad and all that, but whose fault is it that Cook lied on her application? Not Trump's.
DARVO
I'm with you. I can't believe that people think banks just hand out money. They don't. They expect to be repaid.
An inflated valuation on an asset is easy to verify and rates are adjusted accordingly, but if someone says a home is going to be their primary residence, the only thing they have to go on is their statement. Cook deliberately misrepresented the intended use of the properties to get a better rate.
Are you f’ing kidding me? Trump came off like a bandit by lying shamelessly on every single loan application he ever filed. In exchange he received significantly lower interest rates and came ahead of people who filled their forms honestly. People go to jail for that all of the time.
Under the category of pretending not to understand something, let me show you where your post went wrong. If a loan seeker tells the bank that the collateral property is worth $1 million and the bank says the property is worth $950,000 to $1,050,000, and an incompetent judge says it worth $100,000, the only one lying is the judge.
Especially when the judge is using a tax assessment that was limited by law to a certain increase every year. The assessment was literally unable to keep up with the increasing valuation of the estate.
Well sounds like Cook should face the music, then.
Trump sure did.
Ummm Trump has faced the music? He’s become the undisputed King of the Grift. Will leave office the richest man in the world. A little lawfare- wah wah.
Makes Nancy look like a princess.
When you come at the king, you best not miss.
Not unles he marries Elon. Probably not on the agenda.
what grift is that?
be specific.
I have no earthly idea if he was "lying shamelessly on every single loan application he ever filed". But as an almost 40-year commercial appraiser, I can say that no lending institution that has ever engaged me, and I've worked as a fee appraiser for some of the largest, has taken the word of a borrower as to the market value of their collateral.
I never heard MSM or Schumer or Schiff claim he lied on every single loan application he ever filed. How did you obtain that info? Did you share it with Schiff, Schumer, MSM? You should. That's powerful stuff.
Banks perform due diligence, and they dig deep on large loans. They don't take anyone at their word. You can claim that your assets include a goose laying golden eggs in your backyard, but until the bank can verify that, it means nothing. The rates Trump International got on their loans were those that the banks offered after evaluating the risk and appraising the asset(s). He didn't get a significantly lower interest rate. He got the rate that his company's credit and the pledged assets could guarantee. Banks answer to boards, stockholders, and regulators. Trump paid back the loans that were made on time and in full.
Donald Trump is currently prohibited from doing business in NY. He was utterly toxic in the late 90s, having burned through the $400 million that Daddy slid him under the table. The two things that saved him were mysterious loans and ‘purchases’ coming from Russia and The Apprentice. Trump is a conman, people con banks all the time and, guess what? sometimes individuals in the banks are in on it. But it doesn’t matter when you lie as shamelessly as he did, claiming some properties were three times the size listed resulting in millions of dollars for the con man— they are fair game.
And yet the banks agreed to the loans and were paid in full and on time, so exactly who was the injured party here? Well, except the people who are always butt-hurt about anything Trump.
Ha ha. So perfect.
I mean, my hate for Trump and his business dealings goes pretty far back and is tied to what he did in Atlantic City, but... come on... you really need to put that pipe down. You really don't know much about what you are spewing here.
That, or you've just never been around people in this class and how they use leverage in business and real estate. People on the Forbes list don't operate on our wavelength. They should, but the rules of us mortals don't apply here.
Maybe they're not pretending. Deference to Authority seems to be their only virtue.
I mean....they had to pretend fire alarms are confusing......
https://rumble.com/v6zid0m-bowman.html
Not even the media is that dumb.
You'd have a point if they actually thought about what they report. Simply put though, they don't think - only parrot.
Yeah these decisions are made far above the newsdesk, the "reporters" are just people good at reading off a cue card.
It's theater kids all the way down.
It underlies the whole corrupt way they insure they get to live in the style they’re accustomed to. “They” being the elites that run things.
Yeah.. Let's go with "Pretend not to understand anything..."
As someone who actually is involved in this industry, I would add to Eric's point that it is meaningless to cite that the Freddie average was lower. It is just that, an average and without knowing if Cook was getting a higher rate to lower closing costs or knowing whether her rate was higher because she was putting less down or had a lower credit score or some combination of the two, one really can't draw any conclusion from the difference. The only useful comparison would be to see the Credit Union's rate sheet for the day she locked in including rates for both single family owner occupied and second homes. It is a sliding scale and the rate may have been close to the Freddie average if she were paying a point but if she was trying to trade a higher rate to reduce closing costs (out of pocket costs), it could easily match the rate she actually got. A lot of people do that- they will take a rate a half point higher to get thousands in credit to offset closing costs and thus out of pocket expenses. It is especially so in cases where they are trying to buy multiple properties in a short period of time. Oh, and mortgage fraud is a big deal. We had a banking crisis 17 years ago in part because of mortgage fraud, poorly underwritten loans, greedy Wall Streeters and others securitizing those loans, and bad government policy but a lot people lied about their income and other things to get loans for sure. And most of these loans, including the ones Cook got, are backed by the government through Fannie and Freddie Mac. That is why they come under Pulte's purview.
BTW, the CNBC piece is written not like a true journalist but like defense counsel for Cook. Like they are trying to create reasonable doubt in the jury, not trying to find the truth for the public. The Financial Times piece is also crap. OK, the Loan Estimate says vacation home. Show us the doc and what interest rate is quoted there. I would bet the discussion after that was what can be done to get a lower rate and someone asked if it was possible Cook might occupy the house and it was intimated that could yield a better rate. Instead we get a snippet of the document and defense counsel like spin from the Times. If the final docs said all said principal residence then the Loan Estimate is further evidence of the fraud.
They invented “No Verification” loans just for that purpose
So, if the rates turned out to be equal, or unfavorable, would that erase her lying on the applications?
No, but it would be surprising.
The criminal class in this country doesn't rob banks from the outside.
I said this at the time. The media's reporting was quite ridiculous. A tax representation and a mortgage application are completely different things, and telling the truth on one doesn't prove you didn't lie on the other.
Especially when the financial benefit of one lie is bigger than the other.
Yes. She lied on the document where the lie could help her get approved and get a lower rate. If she didn't lie on a document where she would gain nothing from the lie, so what! Journalists who portray this as evidence that she did nothing wrong are genuinely stupid, or highly partisan. I suppose they could be both...
True, partisan because they’re stupid.
A bigger question they're ignoring with great deliberation is where in the constitution are these "independent" agencies described? Which article? They speak as if it is axiomatic the fed shouldn't be subject to "political influences", yet aren't these the same people who constantly carp about "our democracy"? How is an incredibly powerful but completely unaccountable agency in any way democratic? That's the story they're really burying.
Another example that laws apply only to peasants - not to the ruling class
The initial "ruling" was ridiculous. A TRO requires that the "injury" be irreparable
Being fired is not irreparable . (reinstatement, back pay etc)
And then the ruling class leaps to the defense of their own.
"luminaries" cry about FED "independence" - when the FED has always been a political animal.
The media throws out a smokescreen - "documents" that have nothing to do with the central
issue - did Cook make false statements on her mortgage application?
Again, if a peasant did that - they'd be in jail
This is the same playbook used to cover up the
Hunter laptop
US funded Biolabs in Ukraine
To discredit Ivermectin
to push the Covid "shots"
We also saw in America This Week today a clip citing Trump saying inject chlorine in your veins, which he never said.
innocent until proven guilty…buuuut, i don’t see how this isn’t mortgage fraud. and any sort of fraud is a “crime of moral turpitude.” lawyers are disbarred for this all the time. she’s not a lawyer, but her job at Federal Reserve requires public trust in a similar way.
the right thing to do would be to step out of the position, but that’s not gonna happen b/c Dems want to use her as a cudgel to hit Trump with—if he’d kept a low-profile this likely would’ve resolved with his preferred outcome. ugh.
It's only fraud when YOU do it, racist.
😉😏🤣
Just another day of ... "Rules for Thee (sucker!) but, not for Me!"
I am a real estate attorney who has been in practice for 30 years. I served as an expert witness at a trial involving mortgage fraud allegedly perpetrated during the run-up to the Great Financial Crisis. Federal mortgage fraud is not "fraud" in the usual sense because the government doesn't have to prove the "fraudster" benefitted from the "fraud" or that the "victim" relied on the "fraudulent" misrepresentation. All that must be proved is that the defendant made a material false statement in the course of procuring a loan. Stating in closing documents in successive transactions that the defendant intended to occupy the premises as his/her primary residence is a material falsehood, beyond fair argument. Lots of people went to jail for less in the aftermath of the GFC.
I thought that declaring two primary residences was tax fraud, and that tax fraud was more serious than lender fraud.
Matt I deeply appreciate you parsing through the MSM BS to explain this. Their skills of deception are truly unbelievable.
Now I am concerned that there is fraud here. Every 'fact' cited in these articles is complete bullshit. Take the mortgage rate: If you were looking at averages, the average in the state of MI or GA would be better, but still worthless. Mortgage rates are borrower specific (credit score, borrowing history, income level, property you're borrowing against, etc.), not set by a state average.
What she put on the disclosure forms is also useless. The only thing that matters is what is on the loan application. Ms. Cook has to know this. Has anybody checked state tax returns to see if she claimed homestead credits on both properties (I don't know about GA, but in MI homesteading gets you a nice property tax break)?
Purchasing two properties so close together (weeks?) would make claiming primary on both difficult to justify as an 'I forgot' mistake. All this is for a .25 point break on your mortgage rate.
In the past, a Fed Governor caught in outright fraud (have not seen the loan apps, so...) would have quietly resigned, thereby preserving 'Fed Independence'. It is Cook that has risked the institutional independence of the Fed, not Trump. For a .25% lower mortgage rate on one of the properties, just stupid...
GA is a homestead state, too. One receives a property tax break.
Getting loan estimates for the property as a main residence (because that's loan she got), and as a vacation home just makes her look more guilty because the difference in rates between the two is right in front of her.
Cook, Adam Schiff, Letitia James, mortgage rate privilege must be a wink-and-nod thing shared by Dems.
The issue is NOT Fed independence. The law says the president can remove a Fed governor with cause. Clearly, lying on the mortgage application is a fraud and a crime. That is undoubtedly cause for removal.
SCOTUS will uphold the firing, and base it on “cause” and avoid the issue of Fed independence.