‘Petty Political Payback’: Trump Administration Goes After New York AG Letitia James Again for Fraud Despite Three Failed Attempts to Criminally Charge Her
The Trump administration is taking another shot at New York Attorney General Letitia James with two new criminal referrals after three previous attempts to prosecute her failed.
Last year, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte tried to have James charged with mortgage fraud over allegations concerning two properties she owned in Brooklyn, New York, and Norfolk, Virginia.
When President Donald Trump pressured former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert to charge James, Siebert refused because there was no incriminating evidence and turned in his resignation.
Trump replaced Siebert with Lindsey Halligan, his former personal attorney with no prosecutorial experience, who charged James at his behest. However, the indictment fell apart after a judge declared that Halligan was unlawfully appointed.
Two grand juries also declined to indict James, which set the effort back even further.
Now, the Trump administration is trying to make two new referrals stick, this time for insurance fraud.
In a letter to prosecutors, Pulte based his new accusations on a social media post on X from an attorney and media personality who posted insurance documents that allegedly contain falsified information on two separate homeowners’ insurance applications filled out by James.
Both applications were for two properties James owns in Norfolk and were submitted to two different insurance agencies in Illinois and Florida, one application for each property, according to NBC News.
Pulte wrote to federal prosecutors in both states that James misrepresented the use of both properties.
In his referral to the prosecutor in Illinois, he wrote that James “made representations that the house would be occupied by a single adult, with no children. Instead, according to the post, she knew the house was actually occupied by four people — three children and her niece.”
To the Florida prosecutor, Pulte wrote that James “made false representations that her property would be unoccupied five months out of the year. According to the post, this was false. The house was, in fact, occupied year-round by her niece.”
In a statement, James’ attorney Abbe D. Lowell scorched the allegations, saying that “Trump and his political enablers keep abusing their power to pursue a vendetta against her by trying to rename, refile, and repeat baseless allegations.”
He continued: “They continue this improper revenge campaign instead of helping bring down the rising cost of living in this country. These desperate tactics will fail — just as every previous attempt has failed — and exposes an Administration that has abandoned its responsibility to the American people in favor of petty political payback.”
In a Vanity Fair interview, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to charge James in retaliation for a successful lawsuit she filed in 2022, accusing him and his family of inflating the net worth of several Trump Organization assets.
A judge found him liable and ordered him to pay $454 million, but an appeals court later dismissed the judgment. James said she would work to reinstate the penalty.
Trump maintained that James’ lawsuit and the indictments were all part of a politically motivated, corrupt “witch hunt” to thwart his 2024 presidential campaign efforts.