By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday a top antagonist, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, should be “brought to justice” for alleged mortgage fraud, in a move the California Democrat said amounted to political persecution.

Schiff, a leading player in Trump’s first impeachment in 2020, denied wrongdoing. “This is just Donald Trump’s latest attempt at political retaliation against his perceived enemies,” he wrote on social media.

Trump said a U.S. housing finance agency, Fannie Mae, had concluded that the senator had engaged in a “sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud” for declaring a house he owned in Maryland as his primary residence to get a lower mortgage rate. “Mortgage Fraud is very serious, and CROOKED Adam Schiff (now a Senator) needs to be brought to justice,” he said on his Truth Social platform.

The New York Post reported the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae, had sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. 

Officials at the DOJ, Fannie Mae, and FHFA declined to comment. 

Schiff, like some other members of Congress, owns a residence in the Washington area as well as in his home state, and a spokesperson said lenders who provided mortgages for both homes were aware that he used both of them year-round.

Schiff has been a top Trump target since 2019, when he led the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry into whether Trump withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure that country to investigate Democrat Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Trump was impeached in the Democratic-led House, but the Republican-controlled Senate did not convict him.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)