Rep. Eric Swalwell is suing Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, accusing him of abusing his position to “concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud” against Swalwell, a prominent critic of President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, says it is “patently false” that Swalwell, D-Calif., claimed a Washington, D.C., home as his primary residence and that Swalwell “explicitly disclaimed any intent to occupy the District of Columbia home as his primary residence in a sworn affidavit attached to his mortgage agreement.” The affidavit “made clear that the home would be his wife’s primary residence—not his own,” and Swalwell “was and remains a permanent resident of California,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit accuses Pulte of targeting Swalwell over his constitutionally protected political speech, breaching “the First Amendment’s bedrock prohibition on viewpoint-based retaliation.” It also says Pulte’s referral violates the Privacy Act of 1974, which was enacted “in the wake of President Nixon’s campaign against his political enemies.”
The suit notes that Pulte has made referrals against Trump’s political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, and it says there are no known referrals against anyone who supports Trump.
The case against James was tossed Monday after a federal judge found that Lindsey Halligan, who brought the indictment against James and has been serving as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was not lawfully appointed to her position.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte walks outside the White House on Sept. 2.Mark Schiefelbein / AP
Schiff and Cook have not been charged.
Cook sued and the Supreme Court has allowed her to remain in her post as it prepares to hear oral arguments in January. The investigation into Schiff has stalled, sources told NBC News last month, due to a lack of sufficient evidence to bring the charges.
NBC News first reported this month on a letter Pulte sent to the Justice Department about Swalwell’s mortgage. Swalwell’s lawsuit says the leak of Pulte’s referral letter to the media “occurred with remarkable speed.”
A spokesperson for Pulte did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. A spokesperson for the Justice Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pulte has defended his referrals over mortgage fraud allegations, saying during a CNBC interview in August after referring Cook, “It has necessarily nothing to do with the Fed governor. It has everything to do with mortgage fraud in the United States, and if we see it, we’re going to do something about it.”
Swalwell alleged in his lawsuit that shortly after NBC News published an article about his criminal referral, “prominent conservative commentators and accounts” released “specific details about the referral,” like the value of his home. The lawsuit says that “coordinated nature of these disclosures is further evidenced by the fact that they appeared online before DOJ had received any written referral from Pulte.”
The disclosures, Swalwell said, “harmed Plaintiff’s reputation at a critical juncture in his career: the very moment when he had planned to announce his campaign for Governor of California.” He added that “the widespread publication of information about the home where his wife and young children reside has exposed him to heightened security risks and caused him significant anguish and distress.”
Zoë Richards contributed.
