Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data

https://apnews.com/article/fannie-mae-freddie-mac-firing-pulte-data-a4f8c53df74fef83ec7fd07e3d524746

Top Fannie Mae officials ousted after sounding alarm on sharing confidential housing data
By BRIAN SLODYSKO
Updated 8:39 PM CST, November 13, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — A confidant of Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s top housing regulator, provided confidential mortgage pricing data from Fannie Mae to a principal competitor, alarming senior officials of the government-backed lending giant who warned it could expose the company to claims that it was colluding with a rival to fix mortgage rates.

Emails reviewed by The Associated Press show that Fannie Mae executives were unnerved about what one called the “very problematic” disclosure of data by Lauren Smith, the company’s head of marketing, who was acting on Pulte’s behalf.

While Smith still holds her position, the senior Fannie Mae officials who called her conduct into question were all forced out of their jobs late last month, along with internal ethics watchdogs who were investigating Pulte and his allies.

The dismissals rattled the housing industry and drew condemnation from Democrats. It also gave Pulte’s critics evidence to support claims that he has leveraged the nonpublic information available to him to further his own political aims.

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