It's hard not to see President Donald Trump's war on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for what it is: an egregious authoritarian power grab. And yet, as John Cassidy writes in the New Yorker this week, neither Republicans nor business execs seem compelled to say anything as Trump lodges (bogus) allegations of mortgage fraud at Cook in a move to fire her.
So let me introduce you to Bill Pulte, the 37-year-old head of the little-known Federal Housing Finance Agency enabling Trump's attacks. Like the president, Pulte loves social media, which he uses to complain about interest rates and float false rumors using official agency letterhead.
But all that loudmouth social media behavior has strikingly little to say about Pulte's own paperwork problems. My colleagues report:
The heir to a real estate and construction fortune, Pulte got his job in the administration about three years after his wife, Diana Pulte, donated $500,000 to a super-PAC backing Trump. The donation was channeled through a Delaware shell company, ML Organization LLC, that Bill Pulte controlled. It came at a crucial moment, as the former president was just beginning to get his new campaign off the ground following his reelection defeat and the 2021 Capitol insurrection.
This opaque gift drew a complaint from a watchdog group alleging that Pulte violated campaign finance laws by obscuring the source of the funds...Pulte did not respond to questions about why the donation went through a shell company, if he was involved in the donation credited to his wife, or whether the large donation helped him land his job in the administration.
"I am extremely skeptical that Bill Pulte would come across 1/100th as well as Lisa Cook if his paperwork were scrutinized as closely as he has scrutinized Cook’s paperwork," Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the nonprofit Revolving Door Project, told Mother Jones.
Another MAGA loudmouth to keep an eye on? Andrew Bailey, the Missouri attorney general who is about to become the FBI's co-deputy director. And boy is he a doozy.
—Inae Oh
