When Letitia James first ran for Attorney General, I condemned her for what I viewed as an unethical campaign based on a promise to prosecute Trump without bothering to name any particular crime.
Now we know how she set about in fulfilling that pledge. According to whistleblower Daniel Wiesenfeld, a former Brooklyn prosecutor who works in the Investor Protection Bureau, James produced her chosen defendant and ordered her staff to find a crime, any crime.
Wiesenfeld sent an email to call on fellow lawyers not to assist James further in weaponizing her office. He recounted his own experience as a prosecutor in her office and how Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe allegedly directed him to target “Trump himself, Truth Social, Hewlett Packard (DOJ approved merger) . . . without having a credible reason for targeting the organizations and individuals.”
He added that “If you believe Trump is using the [Department of Justice] attorneys to prosecute his enemies and further his political interests, you should find it equally troubling that Tish [James] is doing exactly the same thing.”
In his blistering email, Wiesenfeld reminded his colleagues that they have other things to do than hunt down James’ enemies. While she wastes “significant public taxpayer dollars to target convenient public enemies,” Wiesenfeld reminded them that there is “rampant nonprofit homeless shelter fraud and antisemitic crimes in and around synagogues.”
Instead, James concentrated on an absurd civil case against Trump where the “victims” made money, lost nothing, and wanted more business from the Trump corporation.
After securing a judge with her same disregard for blind justice, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered an obscene fine that was largely thrown out on appeal.James’s pledge to seize Trump buildings also never materialized.
Yet New Yorkers loved her for it. In an age of rage, James has always offered the type of pure, uncut product that rage addicts need.
Outside of New York, most Americans are tired of the weaponization of the law. The problem is that primaries are driven by their party’s most extreme elements and there is no indication that the lawfare will end.
I have also been critical of the Trump administration targeting political opponents, but Democrats vow to keep the cycle going — pledging new investigations and charges if they are returned to power in Congress.
James is unlikely to be deterred by Wiesenfeld’s email. She knows that the far left still prefers performative lawfare to actual enforcement of fraud and other laws. Some voters would willingly watch billions stolen in program fraud in exchange for just one more trophy Trump conviction.
In fairness to James, she has always been open about what she is and what she was offering. She promised weaponization and delivered it with relish. While ignoring liberal organizations accused of similar excesses, she spent millions pursuing the National Rifle Association until it also collapsed. She targeted pro-life organizations in violation of free speech protections.
When parents sought to oppose transgender policies, James threatened them with unconstitutional prosecutions over exercising their free speech. Nothing, of course, came of her threats, which served their purpose in rallying the perpetually enraged.
Losing such cases would ordinarily be an indictment of any politician, but James was not promising legal victories but political revenge. Like Stalin’s secret police head once promised, the philosophy was “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
In Trump’s case, James had to settle for a civil case that was later gutted on appeal. However, the saddest aspect of this controversy is not what it says about James but those who elected her.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
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