{"id":377276,"date":"2025-11-14T02:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T02:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/377276\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T02:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T02:09:16","slug":"fannie-mae-officials-ousted-after-concerns-over-confidential-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/377276\/","title":{"rendered":"Fannie Mae officials ousted after concerns over confidential data"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A confidant of Bill Pulte<\/a>, the Trump administration\u2019s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.<\/p>\n

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the \u201cvery problematic\u201d disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company\u2019s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte\u2019s behalf. <\/p>\n

\u201cLauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email is a problem,\u201d Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae\u2019s single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email addressed to Smith. \u201cThat is confidential, competitive information.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also copied Fannie Mae\u2019s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email, which bore the subject line: \u201cAs Per Director Pulte\u2019s Ask.\u201d Evans asked Fannie Mae\u2019s top attorney \u201cto weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to take legally to protect ourselves now.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies. <\/p>\n

Housing industry rattled by dismissals<\/p>\n

The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte\u2019s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald Trump\u2019s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing crisis,\u201d said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. \u201cHis behavior raises significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He\u2019s prompted mortgage fraud investigations<\/a> of prominent Democrats who are some of the president\u2019s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep. Eric Swalwell. <\/p>\n

In June, he ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac<\/a> to prepare a proposal for the firms to accept cryptocurrency, another industry Trump has boosted, as part of the criteria for buying mortgages from banks. Last week, he persuaded Trump about the allure of a 50-year mortgage<\/a> as a way to increase home buying and building \u2014 a proposal that was widely criticized because it would drastically increase the overall price of a loan. <\/p>\n

Pulte is also targeting the nation\u2019s largest homebuilders<\/p>\n

Pulte also has focused on large home construction companies, which have drawn Trump\u2019s ire. Pulte requested confidential Fannie Mae data and has publicly signaled that he is considering a crackdown if the companies do not increase construction volume.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking at the Fannie Mae builder data and with the top three homebuilders we buy EASILY over $20 billion in THEIR LOANS!\u201d he posted to X in early October. <\/p>\n

In a brief statement, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Pulte leads, did not address questions from the AP, but said the agency \u201crequires its regulated entities to carry out their operations in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fannie Mae said it takes \u201ccompliance with the law very seriously and we have a rigorous program to ensure we follow all laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulte and Smith did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

Currying favor with the president<\/p>\n

Since his appointment to lead the FHFA, Pulte has sought to ingratiate himself with Trump. The 37-year-old scion of a homebuilding company fortune, Pulte has cultivated a reputation as a hyper-online millennial with a thirst for recognition and a desire to please the president. He and his wife also donated about $1 million to Trump\u2019s campaign, records show. <\/p>\n

When Trump sought to oust Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell, Pulte became a leading attacker,<\/a> routinely taking to X, formerly Twitter, where he has over 3 million followers, to excoriate the central bank leader. <\/p>\n

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that some Fannie Mae ethics and oversight officials who were fired last month had been investigating whether Pulte improperly obtained mortgage information for James, who was charged last month with bank fraud after Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department. She said the charges, which she denies, are politically motivated. <\/p>\n

Pulte\u2019s power over the mortgage lending industry is unusual. Not long after his Senate confirmation, he appointed himself chairman of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which both hold trillions of dollars in assets. The companies serve as a crucial backstop for the home lending industry by buying up mortgages from individual lenders, which are packaged together and sold to investors. <\/p>\n

The three competing roles present the potential for a conflict of interest that is detailed in emails reviewed by AP. Like many matters of public policy in Trump\u2019s Washington, it appears to have begun with a social media post. <\/p>\n

In early October, Trump criticized the homebuilding industry, which he likened to the oil-market-dominating cartel OPEC. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sitting on 2 million empty lots, A RECORD,\u201d the president posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. \u201cI\u2019m asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOn it,\u201d Pulte posted in response on X. <\/p>\n

Sensitive data was gathered<\/p>\n

He turned to Smith, who in her brief tenure at Fannie Mae had become a trusted Pulte ally whose work portfolio transcended the boundaries dividing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHFA, according to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. <\/p>\n

Soon, a team at Fannie Mae was overseeing an effort to pull together a tranche of mortgage data, according to emails reviewed by the AP. Smith played a central role and shared the confidential lender-level pricing information with Freddie Mac, which set off alarms at both companies, according to the emails. A spokesman for Freddie Mac declined comment.<\/p>\n

In the Oct. 11 email to Smith, Evans, the Fannie Mae mortgage executive, also added others to the email chain because they \u201cwere involved with this week\u2019s efforts to compile this information\u201d and he wanted to \u201cmake sure you do not exacerbate this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danielle McCoy, Fannie Mae\u2019s general counsel, weighed in, adding that the information Smith provided to Freddie Mac should \u201cnever be shared\u201d and \u201ccould put the company at risk.\u201d <\/p>\n

Others who were part of the email chain included Almodovar; chief operating officer Peter Akwaboah; Devang Doshi, a senior vice president for capital markets; and John Roscoe, a Pulte loyalist and former Trump White House aide, who served as Fannie Mae\u2019s executive vice president of public relations and operations.<\/p>\n

Days later, Almodovar, McCoy and Evans \u2014 who did not respond to requests for comment \u2014 were out of a job. Meanwhile, Roscoe was promoted to co-president of the company, while Akwaboah was named acting CEO.<\/p>\n

Pulte also got something he wanted. <\/p>\n

A day after the terse email exchange, Trump posted a graphic to his Truth Social network that featured Fannie Mae\u2019s logo, a list of large homebuilders and the headline \u201cWe Give Them Billions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulte quickly reposted it.<\/p>\n

___ <\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed reporting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration\u2019s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":377277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[38853,38095,93837,64,16820,181269,84,69,324,181264,60,57,62827,181267,181268,24980,32555,181265,181266,11084,61,67,370,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-377276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-adam-schiff","9":"tag-ap-investigations","10":"tag-bill-pulte","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-corporate-crime","13":"tag-danielle-mccoy","14":"tag-district-of-columbia","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-elizabeth-warren","17":"tag-eric-swalwell","18":"tag-financial-services","19":"tag-general-news","20":"tag-jay-powell","21":"tag-john-roscoe","22":"tag-lauren-smith","23":"tag-letitia-james","24":"tag-mortgages","25":"tag-peter-akwaboah","26":"tag-priscilla-almodovar","27":"tag-trump-media-technology-group","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-government","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115545621510939124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}