Weekly Real Estate News
Summary
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says FHFA is not complying with GAO information requests in its investigation of Director Bill Pulte’s mortgage-fraud referrals. FHFA disputes the allegation and says it responded to every GAO inquiry received during the past fiscal year.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pressing Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to cooperate with a Government Accountability Office investigation into his mortgage-fraud referrals, saying she understands the agency is not complying with the congressional watchdog’s requests for information.
The accusation, contained in an Oct. 6 letter to Pulte obtained by Reuters, marks a new escalation in congressional scrutiny of how FHFA has handled a series of criminal referrals involving alleged mortgage fraud.
FHFA disputes Warren’s characterization. An agency spokesperson told Reuters that FHFA engages with GAO inquiries and said, “The Agency has responded to every one of GAO’s inquiries received this past fiscal year.”
GAO did not publicly accuse FHFA of obstruction. The watchdog told Reuters that it is working with the agency and Congress to obtain the information needed to conduct its work.
The dispute centers on an ongoing GAO investigation
The GAO inquiry did not begin this week. In November 2025, Warren and other Senate Democrats asked the congressional watchdog to investigate whether FHFA and its employees misused federal authority or resources in connection with Pulte’s mortgage-fraud referrals involving New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook and then-Rep. Eric Swalwell.
WRE News reported on that request and later reported that GAO had opened its investigation.
Those referrals have been politically contentious. Pulte has defended them as part of an effort to combat misconduct and fraud in mortgage markets. The people targeted by the referrals have denied the allegations against them. A criminal referral itself is not a finding of wrongdoing.
Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, now says the question has shifted from the substance of the referrals to whether the agency is providing investigators the information they seek. She wrote that obstruction would hinder congressional oversight and taxpayer protection. Her letter, however, states her understanding of FHFA’s response to GAO; it does not establish that a court or GAO has found the agency violated the law.
Oversight pressure is building around FHFA
The new dispute arrives less than a week after FHFA cut the annual budget of its Office of Inspector General to $20 million. As WRE News reported Oct. 1, that represented a 64% reduction from the level submitted by the White House to Congress.
Acting Principal Deputy Inspector General James Hodge warned lawmakers that funding at that level could require the office to cut 70% to 80% of its staff and discontinue investigations, including work involving mortgage, bank and other fraud affecting entities regulated by FHFA.
FHFA has defended the budget decision as an effort to bring the watchdog’s spending more closely in line with inspector general offices at comparable financial regulators. Critics counter that the comparison understates FHFA-OIG’s broader responsibilities involving Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank System.
All Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee called on Pulte last week to reverse the budget reduction. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jack Reed have also sought Pulte’s appearance before the committee.
Why the GAO fight matters to housing finance
FHFA is the safety-and-soundness regulator and conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulates the Federal Home Loan Banks. Decisions about the agency’s investigative practices and the independence and capacity of its oversight functions therefore reach well beyond Washington politics.
The immediate issue is narrower: whether GAO is receiving the records and cooperation it needs to complete an investigation requested by members of Congress. Warren says it is not. FHFA says it has answered every GAO inquiry it received during the last fiscal year. GAO’s public statement stops short of endorsing either characterization.
That distinction matters. There has been no public GAO finding that FHFA obstructed the investigation, and Warren’s allegation should not be treated as such. What is established is that a congressional investigation of Pulte’s referrals remains active, GAO says it is still working to obtain information needed for its work, and the agency and the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking Democrat are now publicly at odds over FHFA’s level of cooperation.
The next substantive development will be whether FHFA provides additional material sought by GAO, whether GAO or Congress publicly identifies specific outstanding requests, and whether Senate Banking Committee leaders move toward a hearing involving Pulte.
