New York Attorney General Letitia James on Friday pleaded not guilty to federal charges in a fraud case tied to mortgage records she signed in 2020.
James is a longtime antagonist of President Donald Trump, who publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to target her weeks before she was indicted.
James pleaded not guilty to one count each of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution during her arraignment in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
James has decried the charges as “baseless,” calling her indictment “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system.”
Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, in a highly unusual move, personally presented evidence about James to a grand jury before it issued the indictment. U.S. attorneys normally have assistant U.S. attorneys present evidence to grand juries.
James plans to file a motion Friday that will ask for her case to be dismissed while challenging “the unlawful appointment” of Halligan, the AG’s lawyers told Judge Jamar Walker on Thursday.
Halligan was installed as U.S. Attorney after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump.
Siebert had balked at seeking indictments against James and former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump foe who was indicted after Halligan presented evidence to another grand jury.
Halligan previously served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers.
“Forcing a political opponent to show up in court to defend baseless criminal charges is like something out of [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia — not the America we know and love,” Democracy Defenders Fund executive chair Norm Eisen said in a statement Friday.
“Donald Trump is destroying the rule of law just like he’s tearing down the East Wing White House. All Americans should speak out about the unjust prosecution of Letitia James,” said Eisen, a vocal Trump critic who has been repeatedly criticized by the president.
The indictment against James alleges that she made false representations in documents she signed when purchasing a three-bedroom home in Norfolk that was financed with a roughly $109,600 mortgage loan.
A rider to that loan required James to occupy the home as a second residence and not rent it out. But the home “was instead used as a rental investment property” for a family of three, the indictment alleges.
James’ total purported “ill-gotten gains” were only about $19,000 over the life of the loan she received, according to the indictment. Most of that money was from savings James allegedly received from having a lower interest rate on the mortgage than what she would have paid if the home was classified as a rental investment property, the indictment says.
Prosecutors who investigated James, in a September memo, said they found evidence that appeared to undercut the indictment’s allegations, ABC News reported Thursday, citing sources.
That evidence includes the amount that James stood to receive financially from her alleged mortgage misrepresentation: Only about $800 in the year that she bought the home, ABC reported.
The prosecutors also questioned if the case could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, according to ABC.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
