State Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump, was indicted on federal bank fraud charges Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said, as the administration seeks to use government power against those who have pursued investigations into him or publicly resisted his agenda.
Trump, a Republican who campaigned for reelection in part on a vow of retribution after being indicted four times in three different courts since his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has repeatedly assailed James on social media and at political rallies as a partisan enemy.
The case is being pursued through Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump recently appointed to lead the US Attorney’s office of the Eastern District of Virginia.
James is one of several Democratic state attorneys general who have sued to block actions by the Trump administration to defund New York or hinder civil rights against transgender individuals and immigrants. In 2022, she brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his family real estate company, eventually achieving a decision that resulted in Trump facing a $452.2 million penalty; a state appeals court threw the penalty out in August, but upheld that the president had been liable for fraud.
Trump denied wrongdoing. He has accused James’ office of bringing the case against him for political reasons.
James blasts ‘baseless’ Trump charges
James, meanwhile, described the indictment as a continuation of the President’s “desperate weaponization of our justice system,” adding that the charges are “baseless.”
“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,” James said in a statement issued Thursday evening.
James’ indictment comes after a grand jury in Virginia on Sept. 25 indicted former FBI Director James Comey on charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation. Comey has said he is innocent. Trump has regularly assailed Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation that detailed contacts between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
It also comes weeks after Trump, in a Truth social media post, publicly admonished Attorney General Pam Bondi for not moving fast enough to prosecute James and other foes.
“Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and Leticia???” Trump wrote. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
The FBI opened a criminal investigation in May into mortgage fraud allegations against James.
The probe was opened after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, a Trump appointee, sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department charging that James allegedly “falsified records” to obtain favorable loans on homes she purchased in Virginia and Brooklyn.
James’ lawyer Abbe Lowell said in May that those accusations were “baseless and long-discredited.”
‘This is what tyranny looks like’: Schumer
The indictment has drawn widespread criticism from Democratic politicians in New York, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer describing the move as “revenge” and asserting that the indictment should “horrify every American who believes no one is above the law.”
“This is what tyranny looks like. President Trump is using the Justice Department as his personal attack dog, targeting Attorney General Tish James for the ‘crime’ of prosecuting him for fraud—and winning,” Schumer said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, meanwhile, described the indictment as a “shocking abuse of power” and accused the Trump of mimicking behavior seen in authoritarian regimes.
“Donald Trump has turned a corrupt Justice Department into a tool for political revenge,” Velázquez said. “This is the kind of behavior you see in authoritarian regimes, not in a democracy like ours. She has always stood up for New Yorkers, and New Yorkers have her back.”
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres similarly described the move as “politically motivated” and an “abuse of power” in a post uploaded on X shortly after news broke of the indictment on Thursday evening.
“The politically motivated indictment of Attorney General Letitia James is an abuse of power—a weaponization of government—at its most outrageous and egregious. It is the latest salvo in Donald Trump’s unrelenting war against American democracy,” Torres said.
He further stated that Trump has made the persecution of his political rivals a “personal obsession” during his second term in office.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said James’s indictment should “alarm and outrage” every New Yorker, accusing the President of “inventing a reason to come after the highest-ranking black woman in the state.”
“The Attorney General is dedicated to the people she serves and the pursuit of justice – two things that put her at odds with Donald Trump, the convicted felon authoritarian in the White House,” Williams said.
He further alleged that any other president would have been impeached had they taken similar actions against political rivals. However, he added that Trump’s alleged abuses of power have become “normalized.”
“We do not have to accept that, and we do not have to treat this lawfare as legitimate,” Williams concluded.
Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and leader of civil rights non-profit the National Action Network, described the indictment as the “latest stop on Donald Trump’s political retribution tour.”
“If he can indict the former FBI Director or the Attorney General of New York, what stops him from going further? I stand with Attorney General James by calling out this attack for what it is, and I know she has the leadership, the strength, and the courage to fight,” Sharpton said.
A number of elected officials, including James, also criticized the President for pressuring former acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert to bring charges against James. Siebert resigned in September after finding insufficient evidence to bring charges and was replaced by Halligan, a former Trump attorney with no prior prosecutorial experience.
James blasted that move as “antithetical” to bedrock principles of the United States.
“His decision to fire a United States Attorney who refused to bring charges against me – and replace them with someone who is blindly loyal not to the law, but to the president – is antithetical to the bedrock principles of our country,” James said Thursday. “This is the time for leaders on both sides of the aisle to speak out against this blatant perversion of our system of justice.”
Schumer similarly criticized the pressure Trump applied to Siebert and alleged that Halligan was not qualified to bring charges against James.
“One U.S. Attorney already refused this case. So, Trump hand-picked an unqualified hack that would go after another political enemy,” Schumer said.
The Justice Department, after receiving referrals from Pulte, has also opened mortgage fraud probes into California Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat who led the House of Representatives’ inquiry that led to Trump’s impeachment in 2019, and Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden.
Neither Schiff nor Cook has been charged with a crime, and they both deny wrongdoing.
