Bill Pulte, dubbed an "attack dog" for President Donald Trump's political enemies, has reportedly made the same error he's targeted political rivals over.
In a new Mother Jones report published Tuesday, Pulte — a chairman of the board of Fannie Mae — is accused of not filing a disclosure form with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The move is particularly eye-opening for legal experts, as Pulte has attempted to go after Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor and economist appointed by President Joe Biden who is under federal investigation. Pulte has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud. She has not been charged with any crime, and additional documents point to a possible clerical error.
"Now, Mother Jones has learned that Pulte himself committed an error in his own financial filings—the same kind of mistake that he has used to attack Trump’s political rivals," according to the Mother Jones report.
"The error stems from Pulte’s unprecedented move in March to make himself chairman of the boards of government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together, these two entities service nearly half of American mortgages, and they’re overseen by the FHFA, Pulte’s agency."
Pulte was required to file a "Form 3" with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency that oversees publicly traded companies in the U.S. and monitors insider trading, after his new roles on the boards.
"The SEC requires that all new officers at public companies file this form within 10 days of starting their position, even if they own no shares of the firm," Mother Jones reports. "Pulte did file a Form 3 within 10 days of joining the board for Freddie Mac (and declared that he has no ownership of any Freddie shares) but has yet to do so for Fannie Mae—putting him in violation of securities law, according to two experts who spoke to Mother Jones."
And this isn't his first error with paperwork.
"He got his job in the administration after his wife donated $500,000 to a super-PAC backing Trump, just as Trump’s reelection campaign was struggling to get off the ground following the January 6 insurrection," Mother Jones reports. "The donation came through a Delaware shell company and was eventually investigated by the Federal Election Commission. The agency said that Bill Pulte had not broken the law, but it did find that his wife had incorrectly filled out a form to indicate the money came from an LLC rather than a member of the Pulte family."
And, at least three other Trump cabinet members have done what they have accused Cook of doing by "claiming primary residences on different mortgages."
And even if Pulte has zero shares, he is required to file a form, according to Joan Heminway, a law professor at the University of Tennessee’s Winston College of Law and expert in securities regulation.
“To me this is a no brainer,” she said. “It is required.”
