Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing
confidential housing data
[November 14, 2025] By
BRIAN SLODYSKO
WASHINGTON (AP) — A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration's
top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from
Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the
government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company
to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.
Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives
were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of
data by Lauren Smith, the company's head of marketing, who was acting on
Pulte’s behalf.
“Lauren, the information that was provided to Freddie Mac in this email
is a problem,” Malloy Evans, senior vice president of Fannie Mae’s
single-family mortgage division, wrote in an Oct. 11 email. “That is
confidential, competitive information.”
He also copied Fannie Mae’s CEO, Priscilla Almodovar, on the email,
which bore the subject line: “As Per Director Pulte’s Ask.” Evans asked
Fannie Mae's top attorney “to weigh in on what, if any, steps we need to
take legally to protect ourselves now.”
While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials
who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs
late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were
investigating Pulte and his allies.
Housing industry rattled by dismissals
The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from
Democrats. It also gave Pulte's critics evidence to support claims that
he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further
his own political aims.
“This is another example of Bill Pulte weaponizing his role to do Donald
Trump’s bidding, instead of working to lower costs amidst a housing
crisis,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, the ranking
Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. “His behavior raises
significant questions, and he needs to be brought in front of Congress
to answer them.”
The episode marks the latest example of Pulte using what is typically a
low-profile position in the federal bureaucracy to enhance his own
standing and gain the attention of President Trump. He's prompted
mortgage fraud investigations of prominent Democrats who are some of the
president’s best known antagonists, including Sen. Adam Schiff of
California, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Rep.
Eric Swalwell.
In June, he ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare a proposal for
the firms to accept cryptocurrency, another industry Trump has boosted,
as part of the criteria for buying mortgages from banks. Last week, he
persuaded Trump about the allure of a 50-year mortgage as a way to
increase home buying and building — a proposal that was widely
criticized because it would drastically increase the overall price of a
loan.
Pulte is also targeting the nation's largest homebuilders
Pulte also has focused on large home construction companies, which have
drawn Trump's ire. Pulte requested confidential Fannie Mae data and has
publicly signaled that he is considering a crackdown if the companies do
not increase construction volume.
“I’m looking at the Fannie Mae builder data and with the top three
homebuilders we buy EASILY over $20 billion in THEIR LOANS!” he posted
to X in early October.
In a brief statement, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Pulte
leads, did not address questions from the AP, but said the agency
“requires its regulated entities to carry out their operations in
compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
Fannie Mae said it takes “compliance with the law very seriously and we
have a rigorous program to ensure we follow all laws and regulations.”
Pulte and Smith did not respond to requests for comment.
Currying favor with the president
Since his appointment to lead the FHFA, Pulte has sought to ingratiate
himself with Trump. The 37-year-old scion of a homebuilding company
fortune, Pulte has cultivated a reputation as a hyper-online millennial
with a thirst for recognition and a desire to please the president. He
and his wife also donated about $1 million to Trump's campaign, campaign
finance disclosures show.
[to top of second column] |
Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte
speaks with reporters at the White House, Sept. 2, 2025, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
 When Trump sought to oust Federal
Reserve chair Jay Powell, Pulte became a leading attacker, routinely
taking to X, formerly Twitter, where he has over 3 million
followers, to excoriate the central bank leader.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that some Fannie Mae
ethics and oversight officials who were fired last month had been
investigating whether Pulte improperly obtained mortgage information
for James, who was charged last month with bank fraud after Pulte
sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department. She said the
charges, which she denies, are politically motivated.
Pulte's power over the mortgage lending industry is unusual. Not
long after his Senate confirmation, he appointed himself chairman of
both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold trillions of dollars in
assets. The companies serve as a crucial backstop for the home
lending industry by buying up mortgages from individual lenders,
which are packaged together and sold to investors.
The three competing roles present the potential for a conflict of
interest that is detailed in emails reviewed by AP. Like many
matters of public policy in Trump's Washington, it appears to have
begun with a social media post.
In October, Trump criticized the homebuilding industry, which he
likened to the oil-market-dominating cartel OPEC.
“They're sitting on 2 million empty lots, A RECORD,” the president
posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. “I'm asking
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going.”
“On it,” Pulte posted in response on X.
Sensitive data was gathered
Pulte turned to Smith, who in her brief tenure at Fannie Mae had
become a trusted Pulte ally whose work portfolio transcended the
boundaries dividing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHFA, according
to two people who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of
retribution.
Soon, a team at Fannie Mae was overseeing an effort to pull together
a tranche of mortgage data, according to emails reviewed by the AP.
Smith played a central role and shared the confidential lender-level
pricing information with Freddie Mac, which set off alarms at both
companies, according to the emails. A spokesman for Freddie Mac
declined comment.
In the Oct. 11 message to Smith, Evans, the Fannie Mae mortgage
executive, also added others to the email chain because they “were
involved with this week's efforts to compile this information” and
he wanted to “make sure you do not exacerbate this issue.”
Danielle McCoy, Fannie Mae's general counsel, weighed in, adding
that the information Smith provided to Freddie Mac should “never be
shared” and “could put the company at risk.”
Others who were part of the email chain included Almodovar, the CEO;
chief operating officer Peter Akwaboah; Devang Doshi, a senior vice
president for capital markets; and John Roscoe, a Pulte loyalist and
former Trump White House aide, who served as Fannie Mae's executive
vice president of public relations and operations.
Days later, Almodovar, McCoy and Evans — who did not respond to
requests for comment — were out of a job. Meanwhile, Roscoe was
promoted to co-president of the company, while Akwaboah was named
acting CEO.
Pulte also got something he wanted.
A day after the terse email exchange, Trump posted a graphic to his
Truth Social network that featured Fannie Mae's logo, a list of
large homebuilders and the headline “We Give Them Billions.”
Pulte quickly reposted it.
___
Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed reporting.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
