By Rick Manning
This afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leaders met with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to discuss their efforts to identify fraud, waste and abuse within the federal government. Americans for Limited Government has been at the forefront of this fight to reduce the size and scope of the federal government since our inception more than twenty years ago, so this meeting and the emphasis on actually cutting government is refreshing and a validation of our multi-decade effort.
One of the more egregious abuses of power is the U.S. Department of Justice’s abuse of its power to harass citizens and companies through frivolous or dramatically expanded charges if that company/person pushes back against their legal threats.
An example of this is an October 21, 2024 lawsuit that the Biden administration brought against Rocket Mortgage because they followed the law.
That’s right, you read it correctly, Rocket Mortgage is having to spend millions of dollars in legal fees to defend itself against charges around actions they legally have no control over.
The DOJ lawsuit stems from a claim that a home was unfairly appraised and somehow that was Rocket Mortgages’ fault.
It is important to note that while a mortgage company may contract with the appraiser, the law requires that the appraisal be completely independent of the mortgage company. In other words, it is illegal for the mortgage company to put their thumb on the scale in the determination of the value of a house under consideration for financing. In fact, to ensure appraisal independence is maintained, mortgage lenders contract through third-party appraisal management companies and have no authority over the independent appraisers.
Yet, somehow, the Justice Department chose to splash Rocket Mortgage’s corporate name as the lead in their October 21, 2024 press release announcing a suit for racial discrimination in a clear attempt to grab headlines at the expense of the online mortgage innovator. Rocket Mortgage has received numerous customer service satisfaction awards from J.D. Power, and the decision by DOJ to very publicly seek to do harm to this company through their news release headline is a demonstration of the soft power to destroy which an out of control Justice Department possesses. The DOJ isn’t alone – the agency’s lawsuit is piling on to charges levied earlier this year by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
What makes this abuse of power particularly difficult to accept is that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act changed federal law to ensure that the mortgage provider and the appraiser are independent from one another in order to avoid a conflict of interest.
In an Orwellian twist, the Biden DOJ is seeking to harm a company’s reputation using the argument that they should have broken that law by putting pressure on the appraiser to come up with the right number in direct violation of the law.
One has to assume that Justice Department lawyers have been updated on the 2010 changes in law, so one can only wonder why they would drag a company that is changing how mortgages are done through the mud with accusations of racism?
If you follow the law, you should not find yourself on the wrong end of a federal government lawsuit.
The fact that the rule of law has been so contorted under the current Justice Department is why the culture at DOJ must be changed. Whether it comes from the DOGE group, Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, HUD Secretary nominee Scott Turner, the House Judiciary Committee led by Chairman Jim Jordan or some combination of all four, there must be repercussions for those bureaucrats who abuse their positions and the law at the expense of those who follow it.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
