Throughout Donald Trump’s first term, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who was then serving in the House of Representatives, was one of the politicians most aggressively devoted to using the Russia Hoax and the impeachment process to destroy Trump’s presidency. Trump, he contended, was guilty of terrible legal and constitutional crimes. Now, though, Schiff is being investigated for allegedly signing off on fraudulent real estate documents, something that is a federal crime and that violated constitutional requirements for serving in the House of Representatives.
The Constitution mandates that, to sit in the House of Representatives, a person must be “an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” (Const., Art. I, Sec. 2, Cl. 2.) You cannot be the representative from one state while claiming that your legal residence is in another. However, Adam Schiff, who has served as both a California representative (2001-2024) and senator (2024-today), is alleged to have stated that his primary residence was in Maryland while he was running for Congress in California.
Image created using AI.
Back in May, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) sent a referral letter to AG Pam Bondi, accusing Schiff of wrongdoing:
Mr. Schiff appears to have falsified records in order to receive favorable loan terms, and also appears to have been aware of the financial benefits of a primary residence mortgage when compared to a secondary residence mortgage as a spokesperson in 2023 told the media outlet CNN that, “Adam’s California and Maryland addresses have been listed as primary residences for loan purposes because they are both occupied throughout the year and to distinguish them from a vacation property.”
For the record, for mortgage purposes, the law doesn’t care how you use your property. However, you will get better mortgage rates only for the one property you designate as your primary residence.
According to the FHFA referral, what Schiff did, while it might have made good sense to him financially, could have constituted a criminal act:
U.S. Federal Housing FHFA believes this alleged misconduct could be violations of the criminal code under 18 U.S.C. § 1343 (wire fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1341 (mail fraud), 18 U.S.C. §1344 (bank fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 1014 (false statements to a financial institution), and/or other relevant state and federal laws.
Given that this referral was made back in May, one would think this would be an old story. However, it got new legs because the DOJ has now officially accepted the requested referral and is investigating whether Schiff did, in fact, violate federal law.
Schiff has vehemently denied the charges, especially because Donald Trump strongly stated that he should be prosecuted:
Donald Trump is calling for me to be criminally prosecuted.
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) July 15, 2025
It's nothing new – but his attacks on the rule of law are more dangerous than ever. pic.twitter.com/UkAkr2Lsql
It seems to me that, if the allegations are accurate, any case should be easy to prove because the documents speak for themselves. All of that, of course, is for a judge and jury to decide.
However, what’s also interesting is that, if Schiff was indeed claiming on bank documents that his primary residence was in Maryland even as he ran to be a representative from California, that would mean that he failed to meet the constitutional requirements for being a House member. Of course, the House can’t expel him because he’s no longer a House member.
Still, there’s an argument to be made that Schiff could never have been a California congressman because he wasn’t a Californian. His tenure, therefore, was void...although nothing can change the damage he did.
Nevertheless, I would suggest that anyone whom Schiff defamed on the floor of the House immediately look into filing a defamation suit against him. That’s because Schiff’s statements will retroactively have lost the protections granted congressmen under the Speech and Debate clause (Art I, Sec. 6, Cl. 1). It sure would be fun to see Schiff face one or more multimillion dollar defamation suits—and if I were the plaintiff’s lawyer, I would argue that any statute of limitations only started running at the moment it was discovered that Schiff’s tenure in the House was a fraud.