Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump‘s housing finance chief, on Thursday repeatedly declined to provide any particulars about where he got the “tip” that led him to accuse Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud.
“I’m not going to explain our sources and methods, where we get tips from, who are whistleblowers,” Pulte mentioned on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“It would be reckless for me to do that,” he mentioned.
That refusal got here after CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin famous that Pulte’s concentrating on of Cook — in a number of prison referrals to the Department of Justice and in a torrent of aggressive social media posts — is creating the notion of “political weaponization.”
“If, for example, the tip came from inside the administration, or came from even inside your agency, with somebody who works for you … then that creates the perception issue,” Sorkin mentioned, including that shedding mild on the tipster might assist Pulte clarify his actions.
But Pulte bristled on the query.
Bill Pulte, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, talking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Sept. 4th, 2025.
CNBC
“I don’t need you to help me explain things, Andrew,” he replied.
When he was requested once more in regards to the supply of the tip later within the interview, Pulte mentioned, “I think we’re worried about the wrong thing. There’s an alleged crime here. Why aren’t we talking about the crime? Why are we blaming the investigators?”
The interview got here lower than two hours earlier than Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, had been scheduled to maintain a press convention on Cook outdoors of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C.
But Pulte abruptly cancelled that presser on Wednesday afternoon, saying in an X post that the was doing so “out of respect for the process.”
In Thursday’s interview, he mentioned, “I don’t want to say why I necessarily did” again out of the occasion.
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