Letitia James indicted on 2 counts in mortgage fraud case

WASHINGTON — New York Attorney General Letitia James was charged Thursday as part of a mortgage fraud investigation pushed by the Trump administration.

James, who infuriated President Donald Trump by suing him and his company for fraud in a case that played out as he was running for office, was indicted on charges of bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution following a presentation to a grand jury in Virginia by a prosecutor who was appointed last month amid Trump administration pressure to deliver criminal cases against his adversaries.

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 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.

Both the Comey and James cases followed unconventional paths toward indictment, with the Trump administration last month pushing 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 was once Trump’s personal lawyer but who had never previously worked as a federal prosecutor.

Halligan presented the case to the grand jury herself, as she did in the case against Comey, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

James calls charges ‘baseless’

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.

She called the decision to fire Siebert and replace him with a prosecutor who is “blindly loyal” to the president as “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.”

“No one is above the law. The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust,” Halligan said in a statement. “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.”

Her lawyer has accused the Justice Department of concocting a bogus criminal case to settle Trump’s personal vendetta against James, who last year won a judgment against Trump and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he lied to banks and others about the value of his assets.

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 and oversaw a lawsuit accusing him of defrauding banks by dramatically 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 Justice Department probe began after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte sent a letter in April to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking her to investigate James over her role in the 2023 purchase of a house in Norfolk, Virginia.

In seeking the investigation, Pulte cited a two-page power-of-attorney form that James signed on Aug. 17, 2023, which states, “I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence.” He speculated that claiming the house as her primary residence might have allowed James to avoid higher interest rates that often apply to second homes.

James’ lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the Democrat never misled anyone. James has said that she made an error while filling out a form related to the home purchase, but quickly rectified it and didn’t deceive the lender.