Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Accidentally Accuses Himself of Crimes
Episode Date: December 13, 2025According to Trump, he committed “deceitful,” “criminal,” and “crooked” conduct that subjects him to criminal prosecution, because he took out 2 mortgages for 2 homes in Palm Beach County ...near Mar-a-Lago, three weeks apart, and listed both as his primary residences for favorable rate treatment. New reporting by ProPublica reveals that Trump did the exact same thing as Federal Reserve Board of Governor Lisa Cook, and that Trump’s “defense” of why what he did is not mortgage fraud, actually provides a defense to Governor Cook! Michael Popok reports. Check out the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe: @LegalAFMTN Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd.
Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats.
Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop.
Learn more at canadaswunderland.com.
Canada can be a global leader in reducing the harm caused by smoking,
but it requires actionable steps.
Now is the time to modernize Canadian laws
so that adult smokers have information and access to better alternatives.
By doing so, we can create lasting change.
If you don't smoke, don't start.
If you smoke, quit.
If you don't quit, change.
Visit unsmoke.ca.
Get you and your crew to the big shows with Go Transit.
Go connects to all the main concert venues like TD Coliseum in Hamilton and Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto.
And Go makes it affordable with special e-ticket fares.
A one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel across the network on any weekend day or holiday for just $10.
And a weekday group pass offers the same weekday travel flexibility from $30 for two people and up to $60 for five.
Buy yours at go-transit.com slash tickets.
When the weather cools down, Golden Nugget Online Casino turns up the heat.
This winter, make any moment golden and play thousands of games like her new slot Wolf It Up and all the fan-favorite huff and puff-and-puff games.
Whether you're curled up on the couch or ticking five between snow shovels, play winner's hottest collection of slots.
From brand new games to the classics you know and love.
You can also pull up your favorite table games like blackjack, roulette, and crap.
Or go for even more excitement with our library of live dealer games.
Download the Golden Nugget Online Casino app,
and you've got everything you need to layer on the fun this winter.
In partnership with Golden Nugget Online Casino.
Gambling problem, call ConX Ontario at 1-866-531, 2,600.
19 and over.
Physically present in Ontario.
Eligibility restrictions apply.
See Golden Nugget Casino.com for details.
Please play responsibly.
You all saw the heiress tour.
Now it's time to go backstage.
Discover the story behind the phenomenal heiress tour
in Taylor Swift, The End of an Era, on Disney Plus.
This illuminating docu-series lifts the curtain on Taylor's life
as her tour made headlines and thrilled bands around the world.
Experience never-before-seen footage in this streaming event for the eras,
including the final show in Vancouver.
Taylor Swift, the end of an era.
Streaming now only on Disney Plus.
Well, Donald Trump and mortgage fraud just seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Especially when you live in a glass house like Donald Trump,
and you accuse your political rivals and critics of committing mortgage fraud like,
oh, taking out two loans, claiming both are your primary residence in order to get favorable mortgage loan treatment,
or saying that you're not going to rent out your home for investment purposes, you know, things like that.
And Donald Trump used those.
attacks to go after Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve to try to get her fired.
That's been blocked for now by the United States Supreme Court, but we'll see for how long,
claiming that that's crooked and criminal and should be made a,
there should be a criminal prosecution referral because she took out two loans from the same lender
on two different properties and checked the box for primary residence.
And lo and behold, she claims that he claims that Letitia James, the New York Attorney General,
another major political rival of his who successfully obtained a 400,
million-dollar fraud judgment against him for mortgage fraud, that she committed mortgage fraud
by saving $50 a month, $50 a month, everybody, she checked a box that said she wasn't going to rent
the house out to anybody, and she let some of her family stay there. Oh, the crimes that are
being committed. And then points to people like Adam Schiff, who says he has a couple of properties
that he shouldn't own, both listed as his primary residence. And lo and behold, that got a lot of
investigative reporters thinking, huh, wonder if Donald Trump or anybody in his administration have
done the exact same thing. And ProPublica has been on the case from day one. About a month or so ago,
I reported that ProPublica had found that at least 20% of Donald Trump's cabinet, including his
Treasury Secretary, his head of the Department of Labor, and the head of the Transportation
Department all had exactly the same types of double primary residence mortgage documents,
that banks let them check the box for primary to give them a slightly lower mortgage rate and they took
advantage of it because frankly it's not a crime it's not a crime if the banks aren't being defrauded
if they encourage you to check the box if they want to give you the lower interest rate that's between
the mortgage lender the banker his underwriter at the bank and his god i mean if there was any if there was any
miscommunication on that issue. So that was the first reporting. But now we got a brand new reporting
that ties it directly to Donald Trump. See back in 1993 and 1994, when Donald Trump was trying
to figure out whether he could live at Moralago year round as a residence and hadn't gotten that
approved yet because it was a club and he was still living in New York, crushed under the weight
of seven or $800 million worth of bankruptcy debt.
Oh yes, he decided to buy a couple of pieces of property in Palm Beach adjacent to or near Mar-a-Lago,
one for about $500,000 mortgage and the other for about a million, too.
And he claimed in those mortgage documents, according to ProPublica, who got a copy of them from the Merrill Lynch bank documents,
he claimed that both were going to be his primary residences, that he was going to relocate within the next six months,
and he was going to live in both houses as his primary residence.
You see the problem already?
First of all, he never relocated to Florida, except in 2007.
He stayed in New York, or actually 2019 became his permanent residence.
He always split time between New York, which was his residence and Florida.
But he checked the box for this primary residence for two pieces of property.
He never lived in either piece of property, according to a real estate agent,
who helped rent out the properties.
Instead, he always rented them out at $2,000 and $3,000 a day
to people that wanted to stay in these investment properties.
So Donald Trump, seeing these facts about somebody else,
would say they are, quoting him,
this is deceitful and criminal and crooked.
Bill Pulte, who's his, the Nepo baby that runs Freddie May and Fannie Mac,
who went after,
behalf of Donald Trump, Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve, Letitia James, the York Attorney General,
Adam Schiff, all for quote-unquote mortgage fraud. He said about, for instance, about this type of
double primary residence box checking the way that Donald Trump did it, that that should subject
the person to a, it's a crime and there should be a criminal prosecution referral, and then he made
a prosecution referral to the Department of Justice. Now, Bill Pulte's interesting because even his
own parents have committed what he refers to as mortgage fraud because they claimed a property
in Michigan as their primary residence when they really lived in Palm Beach County, Florida
the whole time. Now, the Michigan tax collector has gotten back the money for that quote
unquote fraud by Bill Pulte's own parents. Hey, everybody, Ben Micellis here from the Midas Touch
Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popock's new law firm. It's
called the Popok firm. Michael Popak's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm,
really based on the popular demand by all the Midas, Mighty, and Legal A-Fers who were approaching
Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to.
So he went out on his own. He started the Popok firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury
cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death
cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popok's
firm is free. Give them a call. See if you have a case. It's thepopokfirm.com. The Popokfirm.com. Or you can
call 877 Popak AF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-8-6. So 1-8-6.
7-7-P-O-P-O-K-A-F.
Give Michael Popak a call.
And I'm really proud of you, Popak.
Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.
So I also found that the defense that the Trump administration, White House, is using,
actually helps Lisa Cook in her case against Donald Trump.
So if you're listening, Lisa Cook's lawyers, Abby Lowell, listen to this one.
Because the White House said the following.
They said that since the same lender for Donald Trump, Merrill Lynch, was being used for both loans, there could be no defraudation.
That's a big word.
Defraudation.
And it would be illogical for the same lender to have approved the loans and defrauded themselves.
And so a fraud case would be illogical.
And then, of course, they won off, oh, this is just another leftist attack on Donald Trump, you know, and all that.
Now, Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve took out two mortgages, one for her primary residence in Michigan
and one for a vacation home in Atlanta, took it out from the same credit union.
Check the box, because I'm sure she was told to do it by her loan officer to get her the better rate
primary residences.
She never made, Atlanta was always a second home for her, and it is, and she lives in Michigan.
But this is the exact same thing that the White House has just said is the defense for Donald Trump.
Same lender couldn't defraud themselves, no crime here.
Same for Lisa Cook.
So if I'm Abby Lowell and Lisa Cook's lawyers, I file an updated set of material to the United States Supreme Court to supplement the record and do it below as well.
well because the Supreme Court said they're going to hold oral argument about whether Donald Trump
can fire Lisa Cook, whether he has the cause to fire her based on these allegations of mortgage fraud
unproven. That's going to be front and center in January and an oral argument with the United States
Supreme Court, which of course we will follow on Legal AF YouTube channel. Come over there and become a subscriber
there as well. I'm going to follow all of this double talk, all of this
all of this
don't do as I say,
do as I do, whatever the phrase is
that Donald Trump and his minions are using
to defend his own, apparently his own mortgage fraud.
The reality is none of this is mortgage fraud.
This is all commercially acceptable practices
within banks to reward or benefit clients.
Underwriting in the bank knows
that this isn't the primary residence
or knows there's more than one.
It's very simple to do a title record search to find out of the person has a second home or not, has a first home or not, is renting out the home or not.
There's plenty of ways in due diligence of bank to determine, which they're obligated to do, whether there's fraud, because there's no fraud here.
I don't think Scott Bassett committed mortgage fraud.
I don't think the Labor Secretary did.
I don't think, I don't even think Donald Trump did.
Certainly, it was 40 years ago.
But we'll continue to follow it, the complete lack of ethics as Donald Trump uses perfectly acceptable conduct that he himself did to go after his political enemies.
Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.
Can't get your fill of legal A.F. Me neither. That's why we formed the legal A.F. Substack.
Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or an oral argument, come over to the substack.
You'll find the court filing and the oral argument.
and there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, morning A.F. What else?
All the other contributors from LegalAF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got
interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where legal A.F on
Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.
