Hold onto your hats, folks—another political storm is brewing as the Justice Department slams the brakes on a questionable MSNBC report about Senator Adam Schiff’s alleged mortgage fraud.
According to Just the News, the heart of this saga is a clash over whether the case against Schiff, a prominent Democrat from California, holds water amid serious accusations of financial misconduct tied to property declarations in two states.
Back in the early 2000s, Schiff reportedly began listing both his California and Maryland homes as his “principal residence” on various mortgage and election forms, a move that, per Freddie Mac guidelines, isn’t kosher since Americans can claim only one primary home where they reside most of the year.
This dual declaration, documented in 2009, 2011, and 2013 for his Maryland property while simultaneously claiming California as primary, allegedly netted Schiff perks like reduced mortgage rates and tax benefits, not to mention eligibility to run in a California House district.
The issue lingered unresolved until 2020, when Schiff finally marked his Maryland home as a secondary residence, but not before raising eyebrows and prompting an ethics complaint.
Fast forward to reports from Just the News in 2024, which highlighted these discrepancies and sparked an investigation into possible mortgage fraud in Maryland, where Schiff now faces scrutiny for potentially falsifying records.
In May 2024, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte escalated the matter by sending a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleging Schiff had manipulated documents from 2003 to 2019 for a Potomac, Maryland property to snag better loan terms.
By July 2024, a memo from Fannie Mae’s financial crimes investigators backed this up, pointing to what they called a consistent pattern of possible occupancy misrepresentation across five loans. Ed Martin, Director of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, confirmed in August 2024 that the probe into these allegations remains active, signaling this isn’t just a passing headline.
Enter MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian, who on October 23, 2025, reported that U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes met with Blanche and deemed the case against Schiff too weak to pursue—a claim that stirred the pot further.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t mince words, swiftly denying any such meeting took place and asserting that Hayes never suggested the case lacked strength. “Breaking: @DilanianMSNBC reports on a recent meeting that never happened... unequivocally: U.S. Attorney Hayes has told me no such thing,” Blanche fired back, casting doubt on the media narrative.
While Hayes, a seasoned DOJ prosecutor also handling a case against former Trump advisor John Bolton for classified info mishaps, stays mum, the Justice Department’s rejection of MSNBC’s story suggests deeper tensions over how this investigation is perceived.
Schiff, who climbed from ranking member to chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before his Senate role, isn’t new to controversy, having pushed discredited claims of Trump-Russia collusion for years, even touting the debunked Steele dossier in congressional records as far back as March 2017.
His unfounded assertions in August 2018 and April 2019 about “ample evidence” of collusion, later contradicted by Robert Mueller’s March 2019 report finding no criminal conspiracy, and the 2023 Durham report exposing a lack of evidence in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, paint a picture of a politician often at odds with verified facts. Add to that his October 2020 claim on CNN that Hunter Biden laptop stories stemmed from the Kremlin—another baseless jab—and it’s no wonder some view his current predicament with skepticism.
While the mortgage fraud allegations stand on their own merit, they fuel a broader conservative concern about accountability among progressive figures who’ve long dodged scrutiny under the guise of political vendettas. Yet, fairness demands we await the investigation’s outcome before casting final judgment on Schiff, even if the optics of dual residences and past overreaches don’t exactly scream integrity.