President Donald Trump engaged in a mortgage arrangement that closely resembles loans he has called potentially criminal "mortgage fraud" in accusations leveled at several of his targets, according to a ProPublica report.
In late 1993 and early 1994, Trump claimed in mortgages that two properties he owned in Florida were each his primary residence, despite living in New York at the time, according to the report from the investigative journalism nonprofit. It cited contemporaneous news accounts and an interview with Trump's longtime real estate agent.
In a statement to USA TODAY, a White House official said the two mortgages are from the same lender and it is "illogical to believe that the same lender would agree to defraud itself."
"This is yet another desperate attempt by the Left wing media to disparage President Trump with false allegations and to distract the public from his historic first year in office," the official said. "President Trump has never, or will ever, break the law."
In recent months, members of the Trump administration have leveled mortgage-fraud accusations at several critics or targets of the president.
Trump himself sent a letter to Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, alleging she signed documents within weeks of each other stating that properties in Michigan and Georgia would each be her primary residence the next year. He said it was "inconceivable" that she wasn't aware of the first commitment when she made the second, and "impossible" that she planned to honor both.
However, according to the ProPublica report, Trump pledged that the second property in Florida would be his primary residence just seven weeks after pledging the first would be. Even supposing the pledges in the 1990s documents amounted to a crime, the legal deadline for bringing mortgage fraud charges has expired.
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