A Justice Department investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James yielded information that may potentially spoil the Trump administration’s plans to convict her of mortgage fraud.
The DOJ, led by inexperienced Trump-appointed interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, accused James of committing mortgage fraud and lying about a second home being rented out as an “investment property,” collecting “thousands” in rent money and saving over $17,000 in the process.
But prosecutors who investigated James warned Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Seibert, that the evidence for those claims wasn’t so clear. They found that James allowed her niece and her children to live in the house rent-free in 2020, and she only reported collecting $1,350 in rent money on her tax return from that year, which was allegedly to cover the cost of utilities. The small sum undercuts the DOJ theory that she was using it as an investment property.
Government lawyers are also doubtful that they’ll be able to prove that James committed mortgage fraud due to the vague standards around what does and doesn’t count as occupancy in a second home. While the DOJ argues that James didn’t visit the home enough to be an occupant, Fannie Mae guidelines don’t specify that a person needs to sleep in the property overnight.
This all points to signs that the indictment is simply revenge for James’s successful fraud suit against Trump, which made her a lifelong enemy of our spiteful president.
“I will not bow, I will not break, I will not bend,” James said earlier this month at a rally for New York’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in the midst of her federal indictment. “I will not capitulate, I will not give in.”
The Trump administration’s desperate attempt to incriminate her may have made doing that a bit earlier.
The post Prosecutors Find Evidence Ruining Their Own Case Against Letitia James appeared first on New Republic.
