The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of President Donald Trump’s biggest adversaries.
Two years after James successfully sued Trump for civil fraud, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department (DOJ) has issued subpoenas against the New York Democrat, with a grand jury investigation also underway.
The probe accuses James of “deprivation of rights,” a crime that involves a government official violating someone’s constitutional rights in an official capacity.
Sources have told The Daily Beast that the department is pursuing James on the basis that she campaigned for office on a platform of targeting Trump, with the intention of jailing him.
James has been one of the president’s biggest adversaries since she ran for New York attorney general in 2018.
She sued the real estate mogul in 2022 while he was campaigning for the White House, accusing him of lying about his business and inflating the value of his properties for financial gain.
Trump was subsequently fined more than $300 million but is appealing the case.
He has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has accused James of engaging in a political witch hunt against him.
“She’s a horrible, horrible human being, and I think she’s a total crook, there’s no question about it—but that’s just my opinion,” the president said earlier this year.
The investigation into James is being run out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York, which is led by Trump’s ally, U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III.
Federal judges initially declined to appoint Sarcone to the position, but the DOJ circumvented the usual confirmation process by appointing him as a “special attorney to the Attorney General,” granting him equivalent powers without needing Senate confirmation.
The Daily Beast has reached out to James’ office. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
The probe is not the first criminal investigation the administration has opened against James.
In May, the DOJ opened a probe into allegations that James committed fraud by lying on loan and bank documents to obtain better mortgage rates. The investigation was initiated after a criminal referral from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte.
Pulte cited “media reports” to claim that James secured a better mortgage rate by fraudulently stating that a Virginia home she was purchasing with her niece in 2023 would be her primary residence.
At the time, James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, slammed the investigation as an act of “improper political retaliation … publicly instigated and endorsed by President Trump.”
DOJ is also reportedly probing James for her pursuit of the National Rifle Association (NRA).
James had sought to dissolve the NRA but failed. She did, however, win a civil fraud case against the association’s longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, who was found to have diverted millions of dollars from the gun group for his own personal lifestyle.
The post Pam Bondi Launches New Revenge Plot Against Trump Enemy appeared first on The Daily Beast.
