New York Attorney General Letitia James charged in fraud case after pressure campaign by Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted Thursday in a mortgage fraud case that President Donald Trump urged his Justice Department to bring after vowing retribution against some of his biggest political enemies.

James, a Democrat who infuriated Trump after his first term with a lawsuit alleging that he built his business empire on lies about his wealth, was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020.

The top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, a former Trump aide, personally presented the case to the grand jury weeks after she was thrust into the role amid the administration’s pressure to deliver charges.

The indictment, two weeks after a separate criminal case charging former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s norm-busting determination to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to pursue the president’s political foes and public figures who once investigated him.

In a lengthy statement, James decried the indictment as “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.”

“These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost. The president’s actions are a grave violation of our Constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties,” she added.

Both the Comey and James cases followed a strikingly unconventional path toward indictment. The Trump administration last month pushed out Erik Siebert, the veteran prosecutor who had overseen both investigations for months and had resisted pressure to file charges, and replaced him with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who has worked as lawyer for Trump but had never previously served as a federal prosecutor.

Halligan presented the James case to the grand jury herself, as she did in the case against Comey, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

James called the decision to fire Siebert and replace him with a prosecutor who is “blindly loyal” to the president “antithetical to the bedrock principles of our country,” and she said she stood by her investigation of Trump and his company as having been “based on the facts and evidence — not politics.”

Abbe Lowell, James’ lawyer and a prominent attorney representing multiple Trump targets, said James “flatly and forcefully denies these charges.” James is scheduled to make an initial appearance in the federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, on Oct. 24.

“We are deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump’s desire for revenge,” Lowell said in a statement. “When a President can publicly direct charges to be filed against someone — when it was reported that career attorneys concluded none were warranted — it marks a serious attack on the rule of law. We will fight these charges in every process allowed in the law.”

James, 66, has been attorney general since 2019 after becoming the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office in New York. She cruised to reelection in 2022 after abandoning a short-lived run for governor.

The indictment pertains to James’ purchase of a modest house in Norfolk, where she has family. During the sale, she signed a standard document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise.

Rather than using the home as a second residence, the indictment alleges, James rented it out to a family of three. According to the indictment, the misrepresentation allowed James to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties.

In a post on X shortly after the indictment was handed up, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote, “One tier of justice for all Americans.”

“No one is above the law,” Halligan, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. “The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust. The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.”

Trump has been advocating charging James for months, posting on social media without citing any evidence that she’s “guilty as hell” and telling reporters at the White House, “It looks to me like she’s really guilty of something, but I really don’t know.”

The Justice Department has also been investigating mortgage-related allegations against Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, using the probe to demand her ouster, and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., whose lawyer called the allegations against him “transparently false, stale, and long debunked.”

But James is a particularly personal target. As attorney general, she sued the Republican president and his administration dozens of times. Last year, she won a staggering judgment against Trump and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements.

An appeals court overturned the fine, which had ballooned to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld a lower court’s finding that Trump had committed fraud.

The indictment comes a day after Comey made his first court appearance in his case, accusing him of lying to Congress in 2020. Comey’s lawyer told the judge that the defense plans to push to have the case dismissed ahead of trial, arguing that it is a vindictive prosecution brought at the direction of the president.