A grand jury indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday, according to the clerk of the Eastern District of Virginia court, marking the second Trump foe to face federal prosecution in recent weeks.
The indictment came exactly two weeks after a grand jury in the same Virginia courthouse. voted to charge Former FBI Director James Comey accused of lying to Congress.
Last month, Mr. Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Comey, James and a third longtime Trump antagonist, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
James has drawn the ire of Mr. Trump for years. His 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 called James “scum”, “corrupt” and “racist”.
CBS News has reached out to the Justice Department and James’ office for comment.
The charges against James are unclear. In May, CBS News reported that the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation against James regarding alleged mortgage fraud. Three months later, the Department of Justice expanded its investigation against James for his office’s handling of its investigation into the Trump Organization.
The mortgage fraud investigation began after William Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, wrote a letter to Bondi alleging that James “repeatedly falsified bank documents and property records to obtain government-backed assistance and loans and more favorable loan terms.”
Pulte claimed that James obtained mortgage contracts by falsifying information relating to several properties over the decades. The allegations include listing a home in Norfolk, Virginia, as her “primary residence” despite living and working in New York, purchasing a five-family property in Brooklyn with a loan that is only available for homes with four units or fewer, and an accusation that in 1983, James’ father signed mortgage documents indicating they were husband and wife.
James has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless.” In April, Abbe Lowell — a James attorney whose firm frequently represents clients he says have been unfairly targeted by the Trump administration — sent a letter to the Justice Department refuting the allegations made in Pulte’s letter.
In a letter to Bondi, Lowell called the allegations “long disproven” and called the investigation “the latest act of inappropriate political retaliation – 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 filing lawsuits against the president, his businesses and his administration.
In civilian life trial against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, James’ office accused the company of fraudulently inflating the value of its real estate assets to obtain more favorable loan terms in what it called “the art of theft,” a pun on the name of Mr. Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal.” The president has denied any wrongdoing, and he and his lawyers attacked James, calling the affair politically motivated.
After a trial that delved deeper into Mr. Trump’s situation business empirea judge ordered the president and his company to pay a judgment of more than $350 million – which soared to more than half a billion dollars including interest. New York Court of Appeals judges later thrown away the judgment this summer, calling it “excessive”.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has taken the unprecedented step of encouraging the Justice Department to investigate people he believes wronged him during his first term or four years away, including Comey and James.
These measures sparked negative reactions internally. Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert resigned last monthas prosecutors in the office fear the Trump administration could fire him for not prosecuting James.
Siebert was replaced as acting U.S. attorney by former Trump lawyer and White House aide Lindsey Halligan. 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 heads the Justice Department’s new weapons task force — pressed James to resign as state attorney general in a letter obtained in August by The Associated Press.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
