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After all of this news that you put together. >> Okay. And then we got this President Trump putting some more pressure on the fed governor Lisa Cook, to resign over potential problems with multiple mortgages. Now, it appears some of the highest members of the Trump administration may be in the same boat. And we're joined right now by Eamon Javers, who joins us with that story. Good morning.
>> Yeah. Good morning Andrew. ProPublica. Taking a look at the mortgage records of key Trump administration officials. Given President Trump's allegations against Fed Board member Lisa Cook, and the publication found that at least three of Trump's cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. Now, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-deremer entered into two primary residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a secondary home, a second home near a country club in Arizona, transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary residence mortgages in new Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C. that's according to ProPublica, which is citing loan records. All three cabinet members denied wrongdoing to ProPublica. And in a statement, a white House spokesperson said this is just another hit piece from a left wing dark money group that constantly attempts to smear President Trump's incredible cabinet members. Unlike Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who blatantly and intentionally committed mortgage fraud, Secretary dreamer, Secretary Duffy and Administrator Zeldin own multiple residences and they have followed the law, and they are fully compliant with all ethical obligations. And in a statement to CNBC, a Department of Transportation spokesperson said after being confirmed as the Secretary of Transportation, Sean purchased a home in Washington, D.C. where he works full time. The home in DC is not a rental, investment or vacation property. The same bank holds both mortgages and was fully informed of Secretary Duffy's new employment, location and need for a DC residence.
So, guys, this is one of those where you're going to start to see this surface in DC. Now that this mortgage issue has been raised in the Lisa Cook case. You can expect that both sides will start doing oppo research on each other, and I expect this will filter out into the congressional campaigns going into next year as well. >> So just so I understand, and maybe you can explain the rules to us. When is it okay to have multiple mortgages listed as a primary residence and when is it not?
>> Well, that's the question. And the question is whether it's intentional and whether it's fraudulent against the bank that gave the mortgage to the person under the assumption that that person would be living there as a primary residence. For from the bank's perspective, a rental property is more risky than a primary property because, you know, renters do more damage. It might not be looked after as well if the if the owner is not actually living there. So banks want to know which one is your primary residence and which one is not, and which one is a rental. So in each case, there's going to be nuance there. In the case of one bank holding two mortgages where they're both listed as primary, you know, the bank clearly knows this person owns two houses. And what the situation is is that fraud? Probably not. But I think if you're a politician or any kind of powerful figure in Washington today, you should just assume that somebody is going through all your mortgage records looking for any hint of inconsistency.
>> Okay. Just looking some of this up, I looked this up last week or the week before and just to go back over it, there are some exceptions where you can have multiple mortgages. I think primary is that the bank knows about it and the bank signs off about it. But relocation, if you're moving to a new city for a job and you're buying a new home before selling your old one, your lender may allow it. If you're buying for a dependent, particularly if it's an aging parent or a disabled adult child, you can do that if there is. If you're cosigning for a primary residence mortgage to help a friend or family member purchase their own home while you also have a mortgage on your primary residence, or if you're an active duty service member of the military, you can have some of these. But I think the primary issue is going to be did the bank know about it? Do the banks know about some of these issues? But it is going to get right. I think you're right, Eamon to say that this is going to be the new witch hunt, for lack of a better term. They're going to be looking at everybody. A lot of people in DC do have multiple homes because they live back in their district with their family, live in the district if they don't have a rental, if they own a property there, this is going to get interesting. I think this is going to be something that is on everybody's radar screen.
>> Yeah, I mean, I would just imagine that everybody who's campaigning next year should, should look at their mortgage documents and make sure they're squared away. The question here is whether someone. Yeah. The question here is whether someone achieves some kind of improper benefit by lying intentionally on their mortgage forms. Right. Did you get a discount on your mortgage that you didn't deserve? Because, yeah, lower interest rate because you said this affirmatively and it's not true, right? So that's the question. And there's a lot of as you say, Becky, there's a lot of officials in DC who are coming in from home districts, districts, administration officials who just come in for a year or two. And so they've got a new residence here and they're switching homes, all of that.
>> Eamon can we just can we just call a spade a spade then for a second, because at least from the outside. >> This is Washington. >> No, no, at least from the outside. And maybe this is unfair to say, when you look at the Lisa Cook documentation, it raises a lot more questions, in truth, to me at least, than the three examples that were just put up in the past 24 hours, which, of course, are now being used by Democrats to try to suggest that this is some kind of government weaponization, which, by the way, I think we can all agree could still be a government weaponization, if you will. At the same time that she could have done something improper and possibly even illegal. And so the question is how we're supposed to look at this. And the reason I'm mentioning this is I don't want the viewer to look at these three examples and go, well, everybody's doing it when maybe they're not doing it. And when you look at her, her situation, I think there are at least reasonable questions to ask. And by the way, no answers have been provided thus far.
>> I think in her situation is she was renting out at least one of those properties and saying that it was her primary residence. I mean, that's that's a huge distinction. >> What was that? And that they were done within weeks of each other. So you had to know what your primary residence was. >> The banks knew that was a separate issue, but you can't for tax purposes, let alone for mortgage issues. For tax purposes, you can't claim two homes as a primary residence either, right? >> Yeah. And you know the cook case. Yeah. Facially the cook case seems to have a lot more smoke to it than these other cases do. But that doesn't me