President Trump Accuses California Sen. Adam Schiff of Mortgage Fraud

President Donald Trump Tuesday accused California Sen. Adam Schiff of mortgage fraud, allegedly for lying about his primary residence — a claim the Democratic lawmaker strongly denied before saying Trump’s attack was part of a sustained and “baseless” string of salvos against political foes.

Schiff, now a Senator representing the entire state, formerly represented Pasadena and Altadena in the  U.S. House of Representatives. Before that, Schiff was State Senator for the 21st District, which included portions of Pasadena.

In a Truth Social post, Trump dubbed Schiff — a longtime critic of the president — a “scam artist” who obtained a mortgage for a home in Maryland more than 15 years ago that he declared his primary residence while he was a congressman from Burbank in order to win better rates and terms from the mortgage company.

“I have always suspected Shifty Adam Schiff was a scam artist,” Trump posted. “And now I learn that Fannie Mae’s Financial Crimes Division have concluded that Adam Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud.”

In a post on X, Schiff said that ever since he led efforts to impeach Trump during the president’s first term in office, “Trump has repeatedly called for me to be arrested for treason. So in a way, I guess this is a bit of a letdown.”

Schiff posted Tuesday that Trump’s “baseless attempt at political retribution won’t stop me from holding him accountable. Not by a long shot.”

In his post, Trump contends that Schiff said his primary residence was in Maryland “to get a cheaper mortgage and rip off America, when he must LIVE in CALIFORNIA because he was a Congressman from CALIFORNIA. I always knew Adam Schiff was a Crook.”

The longtime Trump adversary served as chief prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate in January 2020. He was acquitted the following month.

Schiff later issued a lengthy statement, saying the latest Trump salvo continues “not only his attacks on me, but also his attacks on other perceived political enemies …”

Schiff’s statement went onto say, in part: “But it’s not just me. Over the years, Donald Trump has been attacking others. And now that he has a pliant Justice Department — with Pam Bondi and other of his criminal defense lawyers running the Justice Department — they are accusing all kinds of political adversaries of various crimes. So they have suggested or referred to the Justice Department James Comey, the former FBI Director, and accused him of — I’m not sure exactly what. They’ve referred John Brennan to the Justice Department, the former Director of the CIA. …

“And the list goes on. And the danger of this, of course, is not that these people will be successfully prosecuted without any evidence, but that they can be put to the difficulty of having to defend themselves, in the hope it will distract the public’s attention from their malfeasance, or make them pay a political cost or a personal cost for standing up to the president.

“And in the case of the present attack on me, the president has an additional motive. And that is Jeffrey Epstein. Basically, the controversy of the Epstein files has dominated MAGA world, and the president needs a distraction. And I am a convenient distraction.”

Referring specifically to Trump’s allegation of mortgage fraud, Schiff’s statement said, “the basis of his accusation is that I own a home in Maryland, and I own my home in California. Big surprise — members of Congress, almost all of them, own more than one home or rent more than one home because we’re required to be on both coasts. So he is using my ownership of two homes to make a false claim of mortgage fraud.”