Photos: YouTube Screenshots
New York Attorney General Letitia James became the latest political enemy to face retribution from Donald Trump’s Justice Department after a federal grand jury indicted the prominent Democratic critic of the president in a mortgage fraud case on Thursday.
James took Trump to court in 2022 in a civil fraud case that resulted in a half-billion-dollar penalty against him and his real estate business (which an appeals court later tossed, though it kept the fraud verdict in place).
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly jumped on the offensive Thursday, accusing Trump of using the Justice Department as his “personal attack dog.”
“This is what tyranny looks like,” Schumer wrote on social media. “…One U.S. Attorney already refused this case. So, Trump hand-picked an unqualified hack that would go after another political enemy. This isn’t justice. It’s revenge. And it should horrify every American who believes no one is above the law.”
The five-page grand jury indictment filed in the Eastern District Court of Virginia charges James with one count of bank fraud and one count of false statements to a financial institution. It is signed by Lindsey Halligan herself. Halligan is Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom he appointed as the interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after the former US attorney, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration to file charges against James and former FBI Director James Comey.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to Thursday’s indictment, James purchased a home in Norfolk, Virginia, with a mortgage loan backed by Fannie Mae. The loan required her to use the property as a secondary residence, but she rented it out instead, the indictment alleges.
James called the charges “baseless” in a video statement, noting that the president’s own public statements show his sole objective is political retribution.
“The president’s actions are a grave violation of our constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties,” she said.
Trump may have already imperiled the Justice Department’s case with his Sept. 20 Truth Social post that the Wall Street Journal recently reportedwas supposed to be sent directly to Attorney General Pam Bondi, but was instead posted publicly. In the post, Trump directs Bondi to go after James, Comey, and others he perceives as political enemies. “We can’t delay any longer,” he wrote.
James’s office and an attorney listed in court records did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case against James comes two weeks after criminal charges were brought against Comey of obstruction of justice and making a false statement to Congress related to his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign’s links with Russia.
The attorney general is not the first of Trump’s political enemies that he has targeted by weaponizing arms of government, and she likely won’t be the last. The next on Trump’s target list may be Sen. Adam Schiff. The Democratic congressman led the first impeachment trial of Trump. The DOJ is now investigating him for mortgage fraud.
Minnah Arshad is an independent journalist based in Michigan. She previously worked at USA Today, Crain’s Detroit Business, and the Detroit Free Press. Minnah has been published in The Guardian, The Intercept, BridgeDetroit, and other outlets.
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