ProPublica: ‘Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal’

Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi, and Alex Mierjeski, reporting for ProPublica:

For months, the Trump administration has been accusing its political enemies of mortgage fraud for claiming more than one primary residence. President Donald Trump branded one foe who did so “deceitful and potentially criminal.” He called another “CROOKED” on Truth Social and pushed the attorney general to take action.

But years earlier, Trump did the very thing he’s accusing his enemies of, records show.

In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a “Bermuda style” home in Palm Beach, Florida, pledging that it would be his principal residence. Just seven weeks later, he got another mortgage for a seven-bedroom, marble-floored neighboring property, attesting that it too would be his principal residence.

In reality, Trump, then a New Yorker, does not appear to have ever lived in either home, let alone used them as a principal residence.

Frank Wilhoit’s axiom comes to mind: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

The difference between traditional conservatism — which hadn’t yet been washed away in 2018, when Wilhoit wrote it — and today’s MAGA Republican cult is that in Trumpism, the in-group is just Trump, and whoever he sees as serving allegiance to him personally. It’s not men, not white people, not rich people, and not even rich white men, as a class. It’s just Donald Trump and those who pay personal fealty to him. Especially rich white men who pay subservient fealty to him.

★ Tuesday, 9 December 2025