A grand jury in Virginia indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday, marking the second Trump foe to face federal prosecution in recent weeks.
James was charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. The indictment alleges that James bought a house in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020 with a mortgage that required her to use it as a second home, but she ultimately rented it to a family and used it as an investment property. It accuses her of misrepresenting how the house was used to get a more favorable interest rate.
Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement: “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.”
James called the charges “baseless” in a video statement.
“This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system,” she said.
James’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said James “flatly and forcefully denies these charges” and said he is “deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump’s desire for revenge.”
James has drawn Mr. Trump’s ire for years. Her office sued the president and the Trump Organization for fraud in 2022, leading a judge to issue a nine-figure judgment against the company. Mr. Trump has referred to James as “scum,” “corrupt” and “racist.”
The indictment came exactly two weeks after a grand jury in the same Virginia courthouse voted to indict another Trump adversary, former FBI Director James Comey, on charges of lying to Congress. James was indicted by a different grand jury than the one that indicted Comey, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Last month, Mr. Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into Comey, James and a third longtime Trump antagonist, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
In May, CBS News reported that the Justice Department had launched a criminal probe into James around alleged mortgage fraud. Three months later, the Justice Department expanded its investigation into James for her office’s handling of its Trump Organization probe.
The mortgage fraud investigation began after William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, wrote a letter to Bondi alleging that James “has, in multiple instances, falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms.”
Pulte claimed James received deals on mortgage terms by falsifying information related to several different properties over the course of decades — not including the 2020 purchase that led to Thursday’s charges. Pulte’s allegations include listing another home in Norfolk, Virginia, as her “principal residence” despite living and working in New York, buying a five-family property in Brooklyn with a loan that is only available for homes with four units or less, and an accusation that in 1983, James’ father signed mortgage documents stating they were husband and wife.
James denied the allegations at the time, calling them “baseless.”
In April, Lowell — an attorney for James whose firm frequently represents clients that it believes have been unfairly targeted by the Trump administration — sent a letter to the Department of Justice refuting the allegations laid out in Pulte’s letter.
Lowell called the allegations “long-disproven” and referred to the investigation as “the latest act of improper political retribution — this time directed at Ms. James — publicly instigated and endorsed by President Trump.”
DOJ charges another longtime Trump foe
Mr. Trump has sparred with James since she was elected New York attorney general in 2018 and began pursuing cases against the president, his businesses and his administration.
In the civil lawsuit against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, James’ office accused the company of fraudulently inflating the value of its real estate assets to gain more favorable lending terms in what she called “the art of the steal,” a play on the name of Mr. Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal.” The president denied wrongdoing, and he and his attorneys lashed out at James, characterizing the case as politically motivated.
After a trial that delved deeply into Mr. Trump’s business empire, a judge ordered the president and his company to pay a judgment in excess of $350 million — which ballooned to over a half-billion dollars including interest. Judges on New York’s appellate court later tossed out the judgment over the summer, calling it “excessive.”
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has taken the unprecedented step of encouraging the Justice Department to look into people who he believes wronged him during his first term or his four years out of office — including Comey and James.
The moves have been met with some internal backlash. The acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned last month, amid concern from prosecutors in the office that the Trump administration could fire him for failing to prosecute James.
Siebert was replaced as interim U.S. attorney by Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump attorney and White House aide. Just days after she was sworn in, the office asked a grand jury to indict Comey for allegedly lying during a Senate hearing five years ago.
Meanwhile, Trump-aligned attorney Ed Martin — who leads the Justice Department’s new Weaponization Working Group — pressed James to resign as state attorney general in an August letter obtained by the Associated Press.
This is a developing story and will be updated.