Former President launched a sharply personal and detailed attack against longtime political adversary Sen. (D-CA) on Tuesday, accusing the lawmaker of a years-long “pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud” in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“I have always suspected Shifty Adam Shiff (sic) was a scam artist,” Trump wrote. He then claimed that Fannie Mae’s Financial Crimes Division had determined that Schiff had improperly declared a Maryland home as his primary residence to secure better mortgage terms, despite representing California in Congress.

“Adam Schiff said that his primary residence was in MARYLAND to get a cheaper mortgage and rip off America, when he must LIVE in CALIFORNIA,” Trump alleged, before outlining what he described as a fraudulent timeline beginning in 2009 and ending in 2020.

According to Trump’s post, the alleged “fraud” began on February 6, 2009, with the refinancing of a property in Maryland, and continued “through multiple transactions” until October 13, 2020, when the property was finally “correctly designated as a second home.” He concluded the post with a familiar refrain: “Crooked Adam Schiff (now a Senator) needs to be brought to justice.”

While Trump has a long history of hurling personal insults and nicknames at political rivals, this latest post stands out for its specificity and its legal framing. The claim that a sitting U.S. senator may have committed mortgage fraud is unusually pointed — and not accompanied by any publicly available evidence or documentation. As of Tuesday morning, no independent confirmation of such an investigation or conclusion by Fannie Mae has been reported.

Schiff’s office has not publicly responded to the post.

The animosity between Trump and Schiff dates back to at least 2017, when the California lawmaker emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal critics during the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Schiff later served as the lead impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020, drawing sustained attacks from the former president, who routinely referred to him as “Shifty Schiff.”

Now a U.S. senator following his victory in California’s 2024 Senate race, Schiff remains a regular subject of Trump’s online broadsides. However, the tone and content of this most recent post marks a dramatic escalation — not just politically, but personally and legally.

During a Meet the Press interview with in November 2024, shortly after Trump won re-election, then-Senator-elect Schiff seemed to predict this sort of attack when he warned that Trump’s rhetoric resembled that of authoritarian leaders and predicted the incoming administration would personally target him. When asked how concerned he was about being singled out, Schiff said, “That’s dictator talk. That’s how autocrats talk.”

While insisting he was not worried for himself, Schiff emphasized that such threats and inflammatory language from a president-elect pose a broader danger to democratic institutions. “I’m not going to have his threats intimidate me,” he said, before cautioning that Trump’s “fawning over dictators,” attacks on the press, and efforts to “undermine our institutions” would ultimately harm the American people. Schiff argued that while voters may have been motivated by economic concerns, they “weren’t voting for dictatorship,” and warned that Trump was at risk of misreading his mandate.

Direct accusations of criminal behavior between major elected officials are rare in American politics, particularly without formal investigations or legal filings to support the claims. Trump’s use of his platform to level such allegations reflects his continued willingness to attack political enemies with little restraint, even as he remains under multiple criminal indictments himself.