The Justice Department’s deputy attorney general on Wednesday “unequivocally” denied a report from an MSNBC journalist claiming that Maryland’s top federal prosecutor had informed department leadership that a potential case against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was too weak to pursue.
Schiff is currently being investigated in Maryland over allegations of possible mortgage fraud.
Ken Dilanian, a left-wing justice and intelligence correspondent for MSNBC, tweeted on Thursday that “Kelly Hayes, the U.S. Attorney in Maryland, met in recent days with Todd Blanche, the deputy Attorney General, to update him on the Schiff case” and that “Hayes told Blanche she did not think the case against Schiff was strong.”
But Blanche pushed back hard on that claim.
“Breaking: @DilanianMSNBC reports on a recent meeting that never happened,” Blanche tweeted. “Can you ask your two ‘sources’ for more info? I’m genuinely curious. Excited to hear more about this made-up meeting! Also, unequivocally: U.S. Attorney Hayes has told me no such thing.”
Dilanian then followed up his Thursday tweet with a statement from Schiff lawyer and former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, who claimed that “it seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”
Hayes, a veteran Department of Justice prosecutor, is also overseeing the case against former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, who faces charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified information.
“She expressed to Blanche, we are told, that she does not believe that this is a strong case, that she does not believe that this is a case that can be won, and not a case that the Justice Department should move forward with,” Dilanian claimed on MSNBC Thursday, just a while before Blanche refuted his story.
Conservative Brief reported that in 2024 Schiff (D-CA) listed both his California and Maryland homes as his “principal residence” in mortgage and election filings, prompting an ethics complaint and raising potential fraud concerns, according to legal experts.
In May, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte reportedly sent a letter to officials Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi outlining Schiff’s alleged misconduct.
“Based on media reports, Mr. Adam B. Schiff has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire more favorable loan terms, impacting payments from 2003-2019 for a Potomac, Maryland-based property,” Pulte wrote in the letter, according to Fox News.
