Trump's Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal

[LiberalArkie]

December 8, 2025, 5:30 am

For months, the Trump administration has been accusing its political enemies of mortgage fraud for claiming more than one primary residence.

President Donald Trump branded one foe who did so “deceitful and potentially criminal.” He called another “CROOKED” on Truth Social and pushed the attorney general to take action.

But years earlier, Trump did the very thing he’s accusing his enemies of, records show.

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a “Bermuda style” home in Palm Beach, Florida, pledging that it would be his principal residence. Just seven weeks later, he got another mortgage for a seven-bedroom, marble-floored neighboring property, attesting that it too would be his principal residence.

Snip

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-mortgage-fraud-florida-principal-residences

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. MaddowBlog-Two Trump mortgages have same feature that led to charges for several presidential foes

“Given Trump’s position on situations like this, he’s going to either need to fire himself or refer himself to the Department of Justice,” one expert said.

Remember over the summer, when Trump urged reporters to start digging through mortgage records, looking for officials who might’ve committed fraud?

Months later, it’s hard not to wonder whether he regrets issuing such a challenge. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-08T18:26:44.920Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/two-trump-mortgages-have-same-feature-that-led-to-charges-for-several-presidential-foes

In fact, when reporters started checking out the records, they discovered that some members of the White House Cabinet had allegedly done the same thing Trump and Pulte accused their targets of doing.

This week, the allegations took on even greater significance when ProPublica reported that the president himself appears to have done the very thing he called “deceitful and potentially criminal.” From the report:

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a ‘Bermuda style’ home in Palm Beach, Florida, pledging that it would be his principal residence. Just seven weeks later, he got another mortgage for a seven-bedroom, marble-floored neighboring property, attesting that it too would be his principal residence.

In reality, Trump, then a New Yorker, does not appear to have ever lived in either home, let alone used them as a principal residence. Instead, the two houses, which are next to his historic Mar-a-Lago estate, were used as investment properties and rented out, according to contemporaneous news accounts and an interview with his longtime real estate agent — exactly the sort of scenario his administration has pointed to as evidence of fraud.

Oops....

Trump, of course, is the first convicted felon ever to serve in the Oval Office, having been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of the Republican’s hush money scandal.

As for whether the president regrets challenging journalists to “go check out” mortgage records to look for potential wrongdoing, the Republican has not yet commented on that aspect of the latest revelations. Watch this space.