Leading New York Democrats have rallied behind the embattled state attorney general, Letitia James, a day after she was indicted on mortgage fraud charges by a federal prosecutor appointed by Donald Trump last month.
The US Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, accused the US president of turning the Department of Justice into “personal attack dogs against […] political enemies”, calling the charges “outrageous”.
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, defended James on X, saying: “What we’re seeing today is nothing less than the weaponization of the Justice Department to punish those who hold the powerful accountable.”
The Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, Zohran Mamdani, said in a statement: “No one should be surprised that Donald Trump is employing fascist tactics – prosecuting his opponents, weaponizing the federal government, and attacking the very fabric of our democracy. And Trump should not be surprised when millions of Americans stand up to his authoritarianism and his greed.”
James’s criminal indictment came two days after the former FBI director James Comey pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding in relation to testimony about the FBI’s investigation of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during his first presidential bid in 2016.
The charges against James – for bank fraud and making false statements – were in some senses a mirror image of a mortgage fraud case against the Trump Organization that she led in 2022 and that Trump claimed was a malicious prosecution.
In recent weeks, Trump has agitated for several political enemies to be hauled before the courts, and switched out a Virginia prosecutor who appeared unwilling to follow through on his will. So instead, he appointed Lindsey Halligan, as a rookie prosecutor to the position of US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, leading swiftly to charges against both Comey and James.
Prosecutors say James rented a property she bought in Virginia out to others, which meant that she should have paid a mortgage rate of 3.815%, not using it as her own home as she claimed, which would have incurred a rate of 3%. According to the indictment, she saved a grand total of $18,933.
It was not previously known that prosecutors were scrutinizing James’s 2020 home purchase. Prosecutors were believed to be investigating a 2023 home in Norfolk she assisted her niece in buying.
“This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system. He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York state attorney general,” James said in a recorded video statement after the charges were filed on Thursday.
On Friday, ABC News reported that officials in the Department of Justice might have been caught off-guard by James’s indictment and were not informed of the imminent action.
But a justice department spokesperson told the outlet that the department “is united as one team in our mission to make America safe again and as stated previously Lindsey Halligan is fully supported”.
Halligan was installed last month. “No one is above the law,” she 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.”
According to a copy of the federal indictment, James is charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. James’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said his client “flatly and forcefully denies these charges”.
James is set to appear in a Virginia court on 24 October. Her attorneys will probably argue that the charges arise from a vindictive and selective prosecution and there is no “material fact” to the charges and they should be dismissed.
The US president has made little secret of his desire to use the justice department to punish his rivals. “What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia [sic]??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” he said in a September post on Truth Social that was addressed to Pam Bondi, the US attorney general. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
