New York Attorney General Letitia James charged in fraud case after
pressure campaign by Trump
[October 10, 2025]
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, MICHAEL R. SISAK and ERIC TUCKER
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.”
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Lindsey Halligan, outside of the White House, Aug. 20, 2025, in
Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
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.
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