(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice is probing the conduct of at least two top Trump administration officials for allegedly interfering with and potentially jeopardizing the ongoing criminal investigations of the president’s political adversaries, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Sources said the DOJ and FBI are scrutinizing whether U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte enlisted individuals outside the Department of Justice to probe allegations of mortgage fraud amid ongoing investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
At least one witness in the Schiff investigation has received a grand jury subpoena to hand over any correspondence with Martin’s associates as well as with Pulte himself, sources told ABC News.
In what would be an extraordinary breach of DOJ protocol, Martin is also believed to have shared sensitive grand jury information about the James case with at least one unauthorized individual as well as worked with another person from outside the federal government to examine potential evidence in the Schiff and James probes, sources familiar with the matter said.
At least one witness in the Schiff investigation has received a grand jury subpoena to hand over any correspondence with Martin’s associates as well as with Pulte himself, sources told ABC News.
Senior Trump administration officials have expressed concerns that the potential misconduct may have compromised the investigations and jeopardized the viability of the cases if they proceed to trial.
While Attorney General Pam Bondi tapped Martin as a “special attorney” for mortgage fraud, officials say the alleged rogue conduct — operating outside of the two U.S. attorneys’ offices investigating the cases and usurping the FBI agents assigned to the cases — violates DOJ guidelines and necessitates a full review of Martin’s conduct to determine what would need to be disclosed to defense lawyers.
FBI agents working on the Schiff case discovered the potential problem when they sought to interview Christine Bish, a California politician and realtor who first publicized the allegations of mortgage fraud against Schiff. When FBI agents first made contact with her, Bish expressed confusion about why federal investigators sought to speak with her again, telling agents that she had repeatedly spoken with a man she believed worked for the Department of Justice as Ed Martin’s lead investigator, sources said.
Bish told FBI agents that Robert Bowes — who has publicly claimed to be a financial fraud expert with the Office of Personnel Management assigned to work with the Department of Justice on mortgage fraud matters — reached out to her a month earlier via a direct message on X to request an interview, according to sources.
Without the knowledge of the FBI or Maryland prosecutors, Bowes spoke with Bish — who is thought to be a central witness in the Schiff case — on multiple occasions during which she provided information on the case, sources said.
A man named Scott Strauss — a private citizen who is believed to be working with Martin — also reached out to Bish to request that she send the documents about Schiff to a private email address, which she declined to do because the request appeared suspicious, the sources said.
Bish, sources said, also told investigators that Pulte had reached out to her directly in July to request the documentation related to her complaint — just days before President Trump shared some of the documentation on social media to claim that Schiff “should be prosecuted.” Pulte has played a central role in the criminal investigations of Trump’s opponents — issuing criminal referrals against James, Schiff, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook — and recently dismissed Fannie Mae watchdogs who were probing how he obtained the mortgage records.
An aide to Martin referred ABC News to the Justice Department’s press office for comment.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department told ABC News, “Anonymous sources seeking to spin or influence ongoing processes do a disservice to the public and to the rule of law.”
Representatives for Pulte, Strauss, and Bish did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. An attorney for Schiff did not respond to a request for comment. Attorneys for James declined to comment.
‘She knows I’m a lunatic’
The concerns about Pulte and Martin’s conduct come as the Department of Justice has accelerated its efforts to investigate and prosecute President Trump’s perceived political foes. Following a public pressure campaign from the president, a Trump-installed U.S. attorney indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey over the objections of prosecutors who sources said expressed serious concerns with both cases, sources said. Investigators in Maryland continue to probe Schiff for alleged mortgage fraud.
All three have denied all allegations against them, and Comey and James pleaded not guilty after they were charged. Defense lawyers have challenged the cases against James and Comey by arguing they would have never been brought had their clients not been vocal critics of President Trump.
James, speaking outside the courthouse following her arraignment, said the justice system under President Trump is being “used as a tool of revenge” and is nothing but a “vehicle of retribution.”
Attorneys for Schiff have called the investigation “politically motivated” and “unsupported by any evidence.”
Prosecutors have not publicly commented on the Schiff matter, but sources say investigators have so far struggled to identify a viable case, in part because the mortgage documents in question are well past the statute of limitations.
After a controversial tenure as the interim U.S. attorney in D.C. when he failed to secure enough Republican support to be confirmed to the permanent position, Martin has only further embraced his status as a partisan warrior for President Trump.
“Attorney General Bondi has been fearless in encouraging me. Like she knows I’m a lunatic — like a wild man — and she [says] keep going, keep going,” Martin recently said on a conservative radio show.
Holding four separate titles — pardon attorney, special attorney for mortgage fraud, associate deputy attorney general, and director of the DOJ’s ‘Weaponization Working Group’ — Martin has often suggested in interviews that he has the full backing of the DOJ leadership, though his self-described “name and shame” approach has resulted in multiple instances of him being privately rebuked by leadership or forced to retract his actions.
Earlier this year, Martin posed for a photoshoot with the New York Post outside the Brooklyn home of Letitia James. Days earlier, he sent a letter to James’ attorney to recommend she resign from office amid his investigation for “the good of the state and nation.” His photoshoot and social media post later earned Martin a rebuke from Attorney General Bondi, as previously reported by ABC News.
In September, Martin sent a letter to a lawyer for an FBI agent who was among the first to respond to the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to suggest he was under criminal investigation. No such investigation took place, and Martin was ordered to rescind the letter.
“If they can be charged, we’ll charge them,” Martin said before stepping down as the interim U.S. attorney in D.C. “But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”
‘I started digging’
While Martin was named the special attorney for mortgage fraud, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland have been leading the investigation into whether Schiff committed mortgage fraud related to the purchase of his home in Maryland.
The investigation itself began with a complaint from Bish — a Republican who is running to represent California’s Sixth District in Congress — who alleged that Schiff falsely listed his Maryland home as his “primary residence” on mortgage documents, despite declaring a condo in California as his primary residence.
“I started digging and pulled all of their mortgage documents,” Bish said in an interview last year with Mike Huckabee. “We start looking and seeing all the things that Adam Schiff has been doing, I had to pick the monster, and clearly that is Adam Schiff.”
Over the last two months, prosecutors have sought to corroborate Bish’s allegations by reviewing public records, issuing dozens of subpoenas, and scheduling interviews with key witnesses, including Bish herself.
Pulte first contacted her with a direct message on X in July to request the complaint she had previously filed, sources said.
On the same day that Pulte allegedly reached out to Bish, President Trump took to his social media platform to say that Schiff “needs to be brought to justice” based on the allegations first made in Bish’s complaint.
Just days after Pulte allegedly obtained the supporting documentation from Bish, Trump posted to social media a screenshot of the same materials — including Bish’s own highlighting.
Nearly two months after Pulte’s alleged outreach, Bowes — a former banker who now works for the Office of Personnel Management — contacted her over social media to request an interview. Bish spoke to Bowes on multiple occasions about the Schiff investigation, sources said. Bish said that she believed Bowes worked for the Department of Justice as a lead investigator for Martin, according to sources.
Bowes previously worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the first Trump administration and was nominated to be the Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A former banker with no legal or prosecutorial experience, Bowes faced criticism following a Wall Street Journal article that reported he disclosed trading stocks and options totaling $671,000 and $3.2 million during his time in government service, and his nomination never came up for a vote in the Senate. Bowes told the Wall Street Journal that he made a mistake and that one year’s filing was too low to require disclosure.
Strauss is a former federal prosecutor who Martin, earlier this year, unsuccessfully attempted to hire to work at the Department of Justice. He spent two years working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida before being reassigned out of the office for attempting to pursue allegations of a voting fraud conspiracy related to the 2020 election. As of November, Strauss was not employed by the federal government.
The FBI has attempted to contact both Bowes and Strauss to understand the scope of their conduct, and prosecutors sent Bish a grand jury subpoena earlier this month to request all her communications with Bowes, Strauss, Pulte, and anyone who represented they were acting at the direction of Pulte or Martin, according to sources.
‘Fighters for justice and goodness’
Since he failed to secure enough support to be confirmed as the chief federal prosecutor in D.C., sources say that Martin has sought a foothold within the Department of Justice to lead the cases against adversaries of the president, including James, Schiff and Cook.
But the investigations of James and Schiff have been one step removed from Martin, who has virtually no experience as a prosecutor, and are instead led by federal prosecutors in Virginia and Maryland.
Earlier this summer, Martin sought to expand his role by recruiting experienced prosecutors from Virginia and New York to join his “Special Attorney Fraud Unit.” Martin sent DOJ officials an email titled “Help Wanted” to encourage prosecutors to join him to be “fighters for justice and goodness and the American way,” according to materials reviewed by ABC News.
“In a special way, the SAFU is called to hold bad actors accountable,” Martin said in his email. “After all, as New York, Attorney General Leticia [sic] James said, ‘Because no matter how big, rich, or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law.'”
But Strauss has not worked for the federal government since 2020 and lacks DOJ authorization to investigate a private individual, according to sources.
And Bowes — although he works for the Trump administration — lacks the authority to conduct the investigations or review sensitive investigative materials. Bowes is believed to have accessed and reviewed grand jury information related to the James case, sources told ABC News.
Bowes has frequently taken to social media to comment on ongoing matters, including the Schiff case, writing in social media posts this summer that Schiff “violated” Fannie Mae guidelines and sharing a news report that Trump blasted “‘Scam Artist’ Adam Schiff over Possible Mortgage Fraud.” In 2023, Bowes also alleged that Schiff was a “proven liar” and suggested that Schiff engaged in witness tampering. DOJ guidelines prohibit officials from posting about ongoing investigations on social media.
After James pleaded not guilty to the indictment in her case last month, Bowes spoke with Lindell TV to opine on the case against James — in direct violation of DOJ guidelines — while representing himself as an OPM official assigned to the DOJ who worked directly on the James case.
During the interview, Bowes commented about the evidence gathered in the James case and appeared to reference grand jury material.
“She felt very confident [that] she could bend the rules, break the rules, and now it appears that she’s committed some felonies,” Bowes said.
Bowes also commented about what he believes would be an appropriate sentence and how James would fare in prison.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Bowes said. “No one is above the law.”
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