Mortgage fraud is increasingly seeping into the political arena, affecting lawmakers and officials on both sides of the aisle, with the latest accusations coming against GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton and his wife, Angela, have three Texas homes marked as their primary residence in mortgage documents, the Associated Press reported. This unlawful move ensures lower interest rates, saving the couple significant money over their loan term.

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The Paxtons also collected homestead property tax breaks on two of their homes. One property is located outside Dallas, and the other two are in Austin.

Federal and state law forbid false statements in mortgage papers and prohibit homeowners from listing multiple properties as a primary residence.

The news comes amid the Trump administration’s investigations into Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud. Like Paxton, Schiff and James listed more than one property as their primary residence.

Schiff claimed his home in Potomac, Maryland, as his primary residence for years instead of his condo in Burbank, California. In 2023, Schiff’s Senate campaign insisted his primary residence was in California after the senator listed his Maryland house as his secondary residence three years earlier. The dual residency accusations against him persist.

James designated her house in Norfolk, Virginia, as her principal residence despite working primarily in New York City as the state attorney general. She also owns a residence in Brooklyn.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have been investigating James since May. The Federal Housing Finance Agency referred Schiff to the Department of Justice that same month, although the letter was only recently unveiled. Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored mortgage financier, concluded in a memo that the senator had “engaged in a sustained pattern of possible occupancy misrepresentation” on five of its loans between 2009 and 2020.

Notably, Paxton has commented on James’s alleged mortgage fraud despite being accused of the same crime.

“I hope that if she’s done something wrong, I hope that she’s actually held accountable,” he said last month.

President Donald Trump also fanned the flames on the issue earlier this week when he twice called for Schiff’s criminal prosecution on social media.

“Adam Schiff is a THIEF!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “He should be prosecuted, just like they tried to prosecute me, and everyone else — The only difference is, WE WERE TOTALLY INNOCENT, IT WAS ALL A GIANT HOAX!”

In a follow-up post hours later, the president said “Shifty” Schiff was “in BIG TROUBLE” for falsifying his mortgage loan documents.

“He once said my son would go to prison on a SCAM that Schiff, along with other Crooked Dems, illegally ‘manufactured’ in order to stage an actual coup,” Trump added, referring to accusations that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., faced concerning the House’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. “My son did nothing wrong, knew nothing about the fictional story. It was an American Tragedy! Now Shifty should pay the price of prison for a real crime, not one made up by the corrupt accusers!”

It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration will investigate Paxton’s alleged misconduct. However, given Paxton’s staunch support of Trump, that may be unlikely.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell, representing James in her mortgage fraud case, demanded that the Trump administration drop the case against his client and investigate Paxton.

“If this administration was genuinely interested in rooting out fraud, it appears they should stop wasting their time on the baseless and discredited allegations against the New York Attorney General James and turn their attention to Texas,” Lowell said.

Even if he isn’t subject to a federal investigation, Paxton will face a perception problem during his GOP primary run for Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) seat in 2026.

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The embattled attorney general is also facing public scrutiny after his wife filed for divorce earlier this month because of his infidelity. She did not elaborate on her decision, though it’s likely related to her husband’s alleged affair with a woman whom he helped get a job with a real estate developer.

That same developer paid for expensive renovations to Paxton’s Austin house, which was listed as his third primary residence in Texas.