Romaine Bostick

I'm pleased to say that Bill Pulte joins us right now.

He is the director, of course, of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

And Bill, I do want to start off particularly with the investigation, of course,

that you brought to light, that Bloomberg reporters brought to light prior to that, and the documents that are at the center of that, and where exactly those mortgage documents originated from and how they got to your desk.

When you look at the documents that you have, the publicly available documents, I am curious whether you or anyone at your agency had a chance to actually speak to Lisa Cook, her lawyers, or any representatives about what you found in those documents.

When you say you're referring, you're talking about just rank and file people going through your own agency documents.

Is that a routine process or is this something that has been very specifically started over the last few weeks or months?

about that referral letter.

And, you know, Bill, you've seen the pushback on this, and we should kind of point out here that part of the concern right now isn't so much whether she or anyone else out there committed fraud, but I think a lot of people would like to know whether there is more of a coordinated effort.

Okay.

And we are in agreement for that.

But what we are doing here is we are actually focusing on both issues, both the potential for fraud, and we are digging deeper into that.

And we should point out that Bloomberg has made concerted efforts to reach out to Lisa Cook and her representatives, to the Fed, as well as to folks in the White House and administration beyond you.

At the same time, Bill, we also have raised concern about whether this might be a weaponization of your office, a weaponization of the White House.

And I am curious if there has been direct

I don't know, guidance from the White House to pursue this?

Well, I mean, to that point here, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about a report that the Philadelphia Fed put out, I think, back in 2023, specifically on this issue of owner occupancy fraud, basically the idea of putting on a mortgage application that you're going to use something at your primary residence and get to get a lower mortgage rate.

What is that?

which seems to be at the heart of the documents that you posted with regards to Lisa Cook.

It was a pretty high number, something like a third.