The U.S. Attorney for Maryland had told superiors at the Department of Justice that she does not believe there is strong enough evidence to charge Sen. Adam Schiff of California with mortgage fraud, MSNBC reported Thursday.
President Donald Trump has called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to criminally charge the California Democrat Schiff, a staunch critic of the president who acted as prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial.
MSNBC, citing three people familiar with the matter, reported that Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes, in recent days, met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to update him on her investigation of Schiff.
“Hayes, an experienced federal prosecutor, told Blanche she did not think the case against Schiff was strong, two people said,” MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian wrote in a post on the social media site X.
“The two said Ed Martin, a controversial senior Justice Department official, is pressing to keep the case alive,” Dilanian wrote.
One of the people who spoke with MSNBC said that the investigation of Schiff is continuing.
CNBC has requested comment from Schiff’s attorney, Preet Bharara, the senator’s office, Hayes and the DOJ.
Bharara, in a statement in August, had called allegations against Schiff “transparently false, stale, and long debunked.”
Schiff in a video statement in July addressing the probe, said, “This is the kind of stuff you see tinpot dictators do.”
“It is designed to intimidate his political opponents and somehow try to silence them,” Schiff said at the time.
Trump in a Sept. 20 social media post urged Bondi to prosecute Schiff and two other foes, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Comey and James were recently separately indicted by federal grand juries in Virginia, after the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District in Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump after questioning the evidence against them.
James is accused of mortgage fraud. Comey is accused of lying to Congress in testimony in 2020.
Both deny any wrongdoing.
