A senior prosecutor has told colleagues she plans to refuse charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James—even though it would defy President Donald Trump and likely see her fired.
Elizabeth Yusi, who oversees major cases in the Norfolk arm of the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), has told co-workers she sees no probable cause to charge James with mortgage fraud, according to MSNBC.
And, reports the outlet, Yusi intends to say so to Trump’s newly installed interim U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, in the coming weeks—regardless of how it will be received.
The move would fly in the face of White House pressure to criminally pursue one of Trump’s most prominent antagonists, and has seen others forced from their posts.
Trump has publicly demanded James’ prosecution, calling her “SCUM” in a Sept. 20 social media post, urging action “NOW!!!”
MSNBC now reports career prosecutors in EDVA are “bracing” for Yusi to be pushed out for refusing to green-light a case many lawyers say lacks enough evidence, just as Erik Siebert, the first acting U.S. attorney Trump installed at EDVA, was.
Halligan—a onetime Trump defense lawyer with no prior prosecutorial experience—was named as interim U.S. attorney on Sept. 23.
Within days of taking over, she secured an indictment of former FBI director and Trump nemesis James Comey on charges that career staff previously deemed too weak.
The James probe stems from a referral by Bill Pulte, Trump’s handpicked Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who alleged James misrepresented a Norfolk home where her niece resides to obtain better loan terms.
James’ attorney Abbe Lowell has said documents show she did not claim the property as her primary residence—emailing a broker that it “WILL NOT be my primary residence”—and any contrary notation was a power-of-attorney error.
James, 66, last year won a civil-fraud verdict against Trump that a New York appeals court upheld while tossing the nearly $500 million penalty in August, prompting Trump to claim “total victory” as James vowed to appeal the financial sanction ruling.
Trump has “repeatedly insisted James face consequences for what he deemed to be a spurious attack on him,” reports MSNBC.
Yusi’s stand comes amid a purge. Siebert resigned before he was pushed on Sept. 19 after resisting pressure to charge James—or to bring additional cases against Comey—before Trump declared he would fire him anyway.
The turmoil intensified last week when Michael Ben’Ary, EDVA’s top national-security prosecutor, was fired after a MAGA influencer questioned his loyalty. In a farewell letter, he blasted political interference that “jeopardiz[es] our national security.”
Legal experts warn that the James matter exemplifies the politicization of federal law enforcement. “This supervisor clearly is doing the right and ethical thing by refusing to bend her legal conclusions to fit the president’s desire for political retribution,” Randall Eliason, a former top public-corruption prosecutor, told MSNBC. He called it “tragic” that careers hang on such decisions.
The DOJ and White House declined to comment either to MSNBC or the Daily Beast, while the White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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