WASHINGTON (AP) – Confidant of Bill Peltthe Trump administration’s top housing regulator has provided Fannie Mae’s confidential mortgage pricing data to a major competitor, alarming executives at the government-backed financial giant and warning that the company could be exposed to claims that it colludes with rivals to fix mortgage rates.
Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show Fannie Mae executives were upset by what they called “highly problematic” data disclosures by Loren Smith, the company’s head of marketing who was representing Mr. Palt.
“Lauren, the information provided to Freddie Mac in this email is problematic,” Malloy Evans, Fannie Mae’s senior vice president of single-family mortgage lending, wrote in an Oct. 11 email to Smith. “That’s confidential competitive information.”
He also copied the text of an email from Fannie Mae CEO Priscilla Almodovar, with the subject line “As requested by Secretary Pulte.” Mr. Evans asked Fannie Mae’s top lawyer to “consider what legal steps we need to take now to protect ourselves.”
Mr. Smith still keeps his job, but all of the senior Fannie Mae officials who questioned his conduct were fired late last month, along with the company’s internal ethics watchdog who had been investigating Mr. Pelt and his allies.
Housing industry shaken by layoffs
The layoffs shocked the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also provided evidence to Mr. Prut’s critics to support their claims that Mr. Prut used available nonpublic information to further his own political goals.
“This is another example of Bill Pelt weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump’s bidding rather than try to cut costs during the housing crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His actions raise serious questions, and we need to bring him before Congress to answer them.”
The episode marks the latest example of Mr. Pulte using his typically low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to boost his own standing and attract President Trump’s attention. He urged an investigation into mortgage fraud. They include prominent Democrats who are among the president’s best-known opponents, including California Sen. Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.
I ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in June. The move is to prepare an offer for companies to accept cryptocurrencies, another industry backed by President Trump, as part of the criteria for purchasing mortgage loans from banks. last week, He persuaded Trump of the appeal of a 50-year mortgage. Although proposed as a way to increase the purchase and construction of homes, the proposal was widely criticized because it would significantly increase the overall price of loans.
Pulte is also targeting Japan’s largest home construction company.
Pruitt also focuses on major homebuilders, which have drawn the ire of President Trump. Mr. Prut has demanded confidential Fannie Mae data and publicly suggested he is considering a crackdown if the company doesn’t build more.
“I’ve been looking at Fannie Mae’s builder data, and the top three home builders combined have easily purchased over $20 billion in their loans,” he posted on X in early October.
In a brief statement, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Mr. Pulte heads, did not respond to questions from The Associated Press but said the agency “requires the entities it regulates to operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Fannie Mae said it “takes legal compliance very seriously and has rigorous programs in place to ensure compliance with all laws and regulations.”
Mr. Pulte and Mr. Smith did not respond to requests for comment.
favor the president
Pruitt has been trying to win over Trump since he was appointed to head FHFA. Mr. Pulte, 37, the scion of a wealthy home-building company, has developed a reputation as a hyper-online millennial with a hunger for approval and a desire to please the president. Records show he and his wife donated about $1 million to the Trump campaign.
When President Trump tried to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, Pulte becomes the top attacker, He regularly accesses X (formerly Twitter), where he has more than 3 million followers, to criticize central bank leaders.
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that some of Fannie Mae’s ethics and oversight officials, who were fired last month, were investigating whether Mr. Palt improperly obtained mortgage information from Mr. James, who was indicted on bank fraud charges last month after Mr. Pelt was referred to the Justice Department. She has denied the charges but said the charges were politically motivated.
Pulte’s influence over the mortgage industry is extraordinary. Shortly after being confirmed by the Senate, he appointed him chairman of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, companies with trillions of dollars in assets. These companies act as a critical backstop for the housing finance industry by buying mortgages from individual lenders, packaging them and selling them to investors.
The three competing roles present a potential conflict of interest, detailed in an email reviewed by The Associated Press. Like many of President Trump’s public policy issues in Washington, this one appears to have started with a social media post.
In early October, President Trump criticized the homebuilding industry, comparing it to the OPEC cartel that controls the oil market.
“They are sitting on 2 million vacant lots, this is a record,” the president posted on the social media platform Truth Social. “I’m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to move the big home builders.”
“That’s right,” Prut posted on X.
Sensitive data collected
He turned to Mr. Smith, whose work during his brief tenure at Fannie Mae made him a reliable Pulte ally that transcended the boundaries of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHFA, said two people, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.
A Fannie Mae team will soon oversee efforts to compile some of the mortgage data, according to an email reviewed by The Associated Press. Mr. Smith played a central role, sharing confidential lender-level pricing information with Freddie Mac, which alerted both companies, according to the emails. A Freddie Mac spokesperson declined to comment.
Fannie Mae mortgage director Evans also added others to the email chain in an Oct. 11 email to Smith. That’s because they were “involved in this week’s effort to put this information together,” he said, “to make sure we don’t exacerbate this issue.”
Daniel McCoy, Fannie Mae’s general counsel, agreed, adding that the information Smith provided to Freddie Mac “should never be shared” and “could put the company at risk.”
Part of the email chain also included Almodovar. Peter Akwaboah Chief Operating Officer; Devan Doshi, Senior Vice President, Capital Markets; and John Roscoe, a Pluto supporter and former Trump aide who served as Fannie Mae’s vice president of communications and operations.
Days later, Almodovar, McCoy and Evans, who did not respond to requests for comment, lost their jobs. Meanwhile, Roscoe has been promoted to co-president and Akwaboah has been named acting CEO.
Pulte also got what he wanted.
The day after the brief email exchange, President Trump posted an image on his Truth social network featuring the Fannie Mae logo, a list of major home builders, and the caption, “We’ll give them billions of dollars.”
Pulte quickly reposted it.
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Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed reporting.
