Ethics and Official Misconduct

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    Buying a Home? Without the CFPB, You Need to Be Your Own Watchdog.

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    The C.F.P.B. had kept a close eye on mortgage lenders. But with the bureau hobbled, consumers should take several steps, starting with shopping for the best mortgage rates.House prices are stubbornly high, and mortgage rates remain substantially above their prepandemic level. Now, with the spring home buying season looming, shoppers have a new worry: A major federal consumer watchdog has been hobbled.Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency responsible for overseeing most aspects of the home buying process, consumer advocates say home buyers need to be their own watchdogs.“Now, when you buy a house, you are much more vulnerable to being misled,” said Sharon Cornelissen, housing director with the Consumer Federation of America. “It’s important to be on guard, because guardrails are being taken away.”Buying a home is the biggest financial decision most Americans will make in their lives. The typical home price is about $397,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, but prices are far higher in some parts of the country. In several California counties, for instance, the median price at the end of last year was over $1.5 million, with monthly mortgage payments over $8,000.What role has the consumer bureau played in home buying?The consumer bureau was created after the financial and housing crisis in 2007-8 to streamline oversight of lenders and financial companies serving consumers. Over the years, the bureau has moved to ease the mortgage shopping process by offering simplified forms and educational tools, and has taken action against an array of banks and lenders. In 2022, for instance, the bureau ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for mishandling a variety of customer accounts, including improperly denying thousands of requests for mortgage loan modifications that in some cases led borrowers to lose their homes to “wrongful” foreclosures.On Jan. 17, in the final days of the Biden administration, the bureau reached a settlement with Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corporation for discouraging borrowers from applying for loans to buy homes in majority Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago and Boston. In an email, the lender’s lawyers said Draper and Kramer “considers the matter closed and denies” the bureau’s claims, but chose to settle in part to avoid “protracted legal costs.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. to Review Election Tampering Conviction of Pro-Trump Clerk

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      The decision, revealed in a filing in a Colorado clerk’s bid to overturn her conviction, marks another example of President Trump’s Justice Department intervening to aid supporters or go after foes.The Justice Department said on Monday that it would review the conviction of the former clerk of Mesa County, Colo., who was found guilty of state charges last summer of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed attempt to prove that they had been used to rig the 2020 election against President Trump.The decision was the latest example of the Justice Department under Mr. Trump’s control seeking to use its powers to support those who have acted on his behalf and to go after those who have criticized or opposed him. It also played into the president’s effort to rewrite the history of his efforts to overturn the results of the election.Three weeks ago, the former clerk, Tina Peters, who was sentenced to nine years in prison on the state election tampering charges, filed a long-shot motion in Federal District Court in Denver effectively challenging the guilty verdict she received in August at the end of a trial in Grand Junction.But, in a surprise move, Yaakov M. Roth, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division, filed a court brief known as a statement of interest on Monday, declaring that “reasonable concerns have been raised about various aspects of Ms. Peters’s case.” In the filing, Mr. Roth said the federal judge who received Ms. Peters’s petition this month should give it “prompt and careful consideration.”Mr. Roth said that the Justice Department was concerned, among other things, about “the exceptionally lengthy sentence” imposed on Ms. Peters by the judge in Grand Junction. He also questioned a decision by state prosecutors to deny her bail as she appeals her conviction as “arbitrary or unreasonable.”The review of Ms. Peters’s case was part of a larger examination of cases “across the nation for abuses of the criminal justice process,” Mr. Roth wrote. The scrutiny of Peters case, he added, was being conducted under the aegis of an executive order that Mr. Trump issued seeking to end the “weaponization of the federal government.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      2 Democrats Begin Investigation of Move to Drop Adams Charges

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      In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the lawmakers, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, accused the Justice Department of a coverup.Two top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have begun an investigation into the Justice Department’s request to drop federal criminal charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York.They accused the department of covering up a quid pro quo agreement between the Trump administration and the mayor.In a letter on Sunday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the lawmakers, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Jasmine Crockett of Texas, cited an account provided by Danielle Sassoon, who resigned as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan over the department’s request. They said her resignation letter indicated that the administration may have agreed to “a blatant and illegal quid pro quo” with Mr. Adams: It would seek to have the case dropped, and Mr. Adams would assist in carrying out the administration’s immigration policy.“Not only did the Department of Justice attempt to pressure career prosecutors into carrying out this illegal quid pro quo; it appears that Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove was personally engaged in a cover-up by destroying evidence and retaliating against career prosecutors who refused to follow his illegal and unethical orders,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.They added, “We write to demand that you immediately put an end to the cover-up and retaliation and provide documents and information about these disturbing accounts to Congress.”Ms. Sassoon was one of seven federal prosecutors who resigned over the department’s move to drop the corruption charges against Mr. Adams. A federal judge delayed a ruling on the request last month.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Intelligence Officials Continue Chat Messages Inquiry

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      Officials confirmed that the N.S.A. managed a system that had been used for sexually explicit chats and L.G.B.T.Q. discussions. An order to fire dozens after the chats were revealed drew scrutiny amid a military purge of transgender soldiers.Intelligence officials are continuing to investigate sexually explicit messages that were posted on a government chat tool, the National Security Agency said Friday, exchanges that prompted the nation’s top intelligence official to order the firing of more than 100 officers this week.In a statement on Friday, a spokesman for the National Security Agency said the messages were posted on Intelink, a tool that the N.S.A. manages for the entire intelligence community.“N.S.A. takes the allegations of recently identified misconduct on Intelink very seriously,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Behavior of this type will not be tolerated on this or any other N.S.A.-hosted system.”The existence of the messages was disclosed on Monday by Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist. Intelligence officials confirmed that the National Security Agency managed the system that had been used for the sexually explicit chats.People briefed on the inquiry said some of the chat logs that were made public had been altered or manipulated, in some cases to remove classified markings or other material. But the people familiar with the inquiry said some context was removed from the exchanges and screenshots in other instances might not have been accurate representations.Long-serving U.S. civil servants said there was little doubt that some of what was posted was inappropriate for any workplace, much less a system in classified networks that is meant for intelligence sharing. At least one of the chat rooms involved was shut down last year, according to a U.S. official.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alabama Grand Jury Calls for Police Force to Be Abolished After Indicting 5 Officers

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      The grand jury said that the Hanceville Police Department, which had eight officers as of last August, had been operating “as more of a criminal enterprise.”A grand jury in Alabama is calling for a small police department to be abolished after recently indicting its chief and four other officers as part of a sweeping corruption investigation, saying that the department had operated “as more of a criminal enterprise than a law enforcement agency.”The Hanceville Police Department, which serves a city of roughly 3,000 residents about 45 miles north of Birmingham, employed just eight officers as of last August, when the chief, Jason Marlin, was sworn in.On Wednesday, the chief’s mug shot was projected onto a screen at a news conference announcing the arrest of the chief and four officers on felony and misdemeanor charges. The wife of one of those officers was also indicted.Champ Crocker, the district attorney of Cullman County, said that corruption in the department had become so pervasive that it had compromised evidence in many cases and had created unsafe conditions at the local jail — and was even connected to the overdose last year of a 911 dispatcher at the department.“With these indictments, these officers find themselves on the opposite end of the laws they were sworn to uphold,” Mr. Crocker said. “Wearing a badge is a privilege and an honor, and that most law enforcement officers take seriously. A badge is not a license to corrupt the administration of justice.”During the half-hour news conference, the district attorney spoke in general terms about the nature of the misconduct the chief and the other officers are accused of. Court records offered some additional details about the accusations, which include the mishandling of evidence, use of performance-enhancing drugs and unauthorized access to a law enforcement database.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hochul May Deploy National Guard as Wildcat Strikes Hit 25 N.Y. Prisons

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      Corrections officers, without their union’s approval, refused to show up for work to protest what they say are hazardous conditions and severe staff shortages.Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened on Tuesday to use the National Guard to ensure the safety of New York’s prisons after wildcat strikes by corrections officers spread to more than half of the state’s 42 penitentiaries.The threat was a response to labor actions that began on Monday with officers assigned to two upstate prisons refusing to come to work to protest staff shortages and other conditions. By Tuesday, strikes had emerged at 25 prisons, state officials said.The officers’ union said it had not authorized the job actions, and Ms. Hochul, calling them “illegal and unlawful,” said she was considering forcing the officers back to work by invoking a state law that prohibits most public employees in New York from going out on strike.“We will not allow these individuals to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues, incarcerated people and the residents of communities surrounding our correctional facilities,” the governor said in a statement.The strikes, the first widespread work stoppage in New York’s prisons since a 16-day walkout by officers in 1979, come as the state correctional system faces close scrutiny stemming from the fatal beating of a 43-year-old inmate by officers in December.Criminal charges are likely to be announced on Thursday against at least some of the officers and other corrections department employees whom state officials have implicated in the killing of the man, Robert Brooks, at Marcy Correctional Facility near Utica.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Federal Prosecutor Responsible for Overseeing Major Criminal Cases Resigns

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      A veteran federal prosecutor in Washington responsible for overseeing major criminal cases in one of the nation’s most important offices abruptly resigned on Monday, according to an email sent to colleagues.Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, resigned rather than carry out a directive from the office’s Trump-appointed leadership, according to several people with knowledge of her actions who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.Ms. Cheung did not say what precipitated her decision in her email, but she thanked her colleagues for adhering to the highest standards of professional conduct.“This office is a special place,” she wrote. “I took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution, and I have executed this duty faithfully.”Ms. Cheung, a Harvard Law School graduate, said prosecutors in the office had conducted themselves “with the utmost integrity” by “following the facts and the law and complying with our moral, ethical and legal obligations.”The resignation came less than a day after President Trump nominated Ed Martin, a right-wing activist who sat on a board that raised cash for rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed for their mass reprieve, to run the office permanently.A spokesman for Mr. Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Decisions by Mr. Trump’s appointees have roiled the Justice Department. Last week, seven career officials, in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and at department headquarters, resigned rather than signing the dismissal of federal corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York, saying the request by the department’s acting No. 2 official was inappropriate and undermined an appropriate investigation. More

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      Who Are the 4 Key Officials Leaving City Hall?

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      Four deputy mayors in the Eric Adams administration — all respected veteran public servants — are resigning.On Monday, four of Mayor Eric Adams’s eight deputy mayors announced they would resign.In a City Hall tarnished by accusations of cronyism and corruption, the four departing deputy mayors stood out as well-regarded technocrats with decades of public service experience.It is unclear if their departures will lead to an exodus of the commissioners serving under them. Nor is it clear how Mr. Adams will replace them, or govern, moving forward.Here is a look at the four officials who resigned.Maria Torres-Springer, First Deputy MayorMaria Torres-Springer was named first deputy mayor last fall.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWhen Mr. Adams named Maria Torres-Springer, 48, as first deputy mayor in October, longtime city government hands breathed a sigh of relief.In a City Hall racked by upheaval, Ms. Torres-Springer’s long, distinguished résumé promised managerial competence. Her prior positions included deputy mayor for housing, economic development and work force; commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development; and president and chief executive of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.She played a pivotal role in developing the City of Yes zoning proposal, which the City Council passed in December, and which is designed to create up to 80,000 units of new housing in a city desperately short of it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Career Prosecutors Signed a Dismissal Request in Eric Adams Case

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      About two dozen lawyers in the Justice Department’s public integrity section conferred on Friday morning to wrestle with a demand from a Trump political appointee that many of them viewed as improper: One of them needed to sign the official request to dismiss corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove III, told the shellshocked staff of the section responsible for prosecuting public corruption cases that he needed a signature on court motions. The lawyers knew that those who had already refused had resigned, and they could also be forced out.By Friday afternoon, a veteran prosecutor in the section, Ed Sullivan, agreed to submit the request in Manhattan federal court to shield his colleagues from being fired, or resigning en masse, according to three people briefed on the interaction, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.The filing landed in the court docket Friday evening, bearing the name of Mr. Sullivan and that of a criminal division supervisor as well as the signature of Mr. Bove.Mr. Bove, the filing said, “concluded that dismissal is necessary because of appearances of impropriety and risks of interference with the 2025 elections in New York City.” The stated justification was remarkable because of its acknowledgment that politics, not the evidence in the case, had played a guiding role.On Thursday, six lawyers — the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and five prosecutors in Washington — resigned rather than accede to Mr. Bove’s demands. On Friday, a seventh stepped down, writing in his resignation letter that only a “fool” or a “coward” would sign off on the dismissal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More