![\"\"](\"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Letitia_James_Interview_Feb_2020.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJames, 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 hastily appointed last month amid Trump administration pressure to deliver criminal cases against his adversaries.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s norm-busting determination to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to pursue the president\u2019s political foes and public figures who once investigated him.<\/p>\n
Both the Comey and James cases followed a strikingly 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\u2019s personal lawyer but who had never previously worked as a federal prosecutor.<\/p>\n
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. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n
Lindsey Halligan, outside of the White House, Aug. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
\nLindsey Halligan, outside of the White House, Aug. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin, File)<\/p>\n
In a lengthy statement, James decried the indictment as \u201cnothing more than a continuation of the president\u2019s desperate weaponization of our justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese charges are baseless, and the president\u2019s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost. The president\u2019s actions are a grave violation of our Constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
She called the decision to fire Siebert and replace him with a prosecutor who is \u201cblindly loyal\u201d to the president as \u201cantithetical to the bedrock principles of our country,\u201d and she said she stood by her investigation of Trump and his company as having been \u201cbased on the facts and evidence \u2014 not politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbe Lowell, James\u2019 lawyer and a prominent attorney representing multiple Trump targets, said James \u201cflatly and forcefully denies these charges.\u201d James is scheduled to make an initial appearance in the federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump\u2019s desire for revenge,\u201d Lowell said in a statement. \u201cWhen a President can publicly direct charges to be filed against someone \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The indictment pertains to James\u2019 purchase of a house in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020. During the sale, she signed a standard document called a \u201csecond home rider\u201d in which she agreed to various rules, including a requirement that she keep the property primarily for her \u201cpersonal use and enjoyment for at least one year,\u201d unless the lender agreed otherwise in writing.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In a post on X shortly after the indictment was handed up, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote, \u201cOne tier of justice for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one is above the law,\u201d Halligan, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. \u201cThe charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public\u2019s trust. The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump has been advocating charging James for months, posting on social media without citing any evidence that she\u2019s \u201cguilty as hell\u201d and telling reporters at the White House, \u201cIt looks to me like she\u2019s really guilty of something, but I really don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her lawyer has accused the Justice Department of concocting a bogus criminal case to settle Trump\u2019s personal vendetta against James, who last year won a staggering judgment against Trump and his companies in a lawsuit alleging he lied to banks and others about the value of his assets.<\/p>\n
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 \u201ctransparently false, stale, and long debunked.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
An appeals court overturned the fine, which had ballooned to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld a lower court\u2019s finding that Trump had committed fraud.<\/p>\n
The indictment comes a day after Comey made the first court appearance in his case accusing him of lying to Congress in 2020. Comey\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, DC…(AP) \u2014 New York Attorney General Letitia James was charged Thursday as part of a mortgage fraud investigation aggressively pushed by the Trump administration, becoming the latest foe of the president to be prosecuted by his Justice Department. James, who infuriated President Donald Trump by suing him and his company for fraud in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,16,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-law-enforcement","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Letitia_James_Interview_Feb_2020.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196050,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196048\/revisions\/196050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/196049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}