The Trump administration has begun to scrutinize the real estate transactions of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, in what could be the opening move of President Trump’s first investigation into one of his foremost adversaries.
The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a criminal referral letter to the Department of Justice this week, saying that Ms. James “appeared to have falsified records” related to properties she owns in Virginia and New York in order to receive favorable loan terms.
The letter was dated April 14, one day after Mr. Trump posted a story involving the claims against Ms. James on Truth Social and called her a “crook.”
It is unclear whether the allegations against Ms. James, which have been touted online for weeks by Mr. Trump’s allies, are substantive enough to merit criminal charges. Ms. James has been one of Mr. Trump’s primary opponents since her office filed a lawsuit against him in 2022, accusing him of overvaluing his assets by billions in order to receive favorable loan terms. The president has promised retribution against his political enemies.
During the first several months of his second term, Mr. Trump mostly avoided the use of the justice system to target his enemies. But last week, he signed presidential memos singling out officials who opposed him during his first term and directing his agencies to scrutinize their actions. And the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, said she was opening an investigation into the state’s governor.
The letter concerning Ms. James — who along with other state attorneys general has sued Mr. Trump’s administration a dozen times since January — goes still further in the specificity of its allegations. It cites documents concerning two properties: a house in Norfolk, Va., that she bought with a niece in 2023, and a Brooklyn house she has owned for two dozen years.
A spokesman for Ms. James said, “Attorney General James is focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this administration weaponizes the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution. She will not be intimidated by bullies — no matter who they are.”
A press representative for the Federal Housing Finance Agency declined to comment.
When purchasing the Virginia residence, Ms. James signed notarized paperwork attesting that she would use it as a principal residence.
Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, has been one of several right-wing critics to point out that she did not live in Virginia and accused her in heated language of committing mortgage fraud. On Tuesday, Mr. Stone directed a social media post at Ms. James, warning, “Look for the F.B.I. on your doorstep one morning soon.”
Virginia real estate lawyers said that the paperwork might be an issue if Ms. James had misrepresented the truth to the lender. But on a separate loan application form provided by the attorney general’s office, Ms. James indicated that she did not intend to occupy the property as a primary residence. Her mortgage agreement did not require her to do so.
The referral letter also accused Ms. James of misrepresenting the number of units in a Brooklyn home she purchased in 2001, possibly in order to receive better interest rates. The letter noted that while a January 2001 certificate of occupancy said the home had five units, Ms. James had consistently said that it had four.
A spokesman from Ms. James’s office said that a rider attached to the mortgage clarified that the building was four units and agreed that she had said so consistently in paperwork.
The month before Ms. James’s lawsuit against Mr. Trump went to trial, anonymous complainants began to file documents with New York City’s Department of Buildings, several of them related to the number of units in the home. None of the complaints have resulted in penalties, and one related to the unit number was referred to by the agency as a “minor error.”
One of the complaints, in October 2024, asked why Ms. James was “NOT being prosecuted for fraud and filling false documents when other people have been persecuted for far less crimes,” then added a pointed question: “a Double Standard???”
The Buildings Department has resolved nine of the complaints. The 10th, submitted late last month, remains open.
Ms. James has been a target since Mr. Trump retook the White House.
In February, the president’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, asked a working group to scrutinize Ms. James’s investigation into Mr. Trump. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s longtime adviser, referred to Ms. James as an “existential threat” to the administration.
In subsequent months, muckraking websites began to raise questions about Ms. James’s real estate history. This month, a blog called WhiteCollarFraud.com posted a story that included a document from the Virginia real-estate transaction that involved Ms. James. The blog is run by Sam Antar, who in the 1990s pleaded guilty to fraud.
President Trump has posted Mr. Antar’s story on Truth Social, as well as others relying on Mr. Antar’s reporting.
“Letitia James, a totally corrupt politician, should resign from her position as New York State Attorney General, IMMEDIATELY,” Mr. Trump wrote on Sunday evening.
The following day, Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent a series of social media messages. In one, he said that special agents at his agency worked “around the clock to prosecute mortgage fraud — with DOJ and other relevant law enforcement.”
“There is no room for fraud in our mortgage markets. None,” he wrote, adding “No one and no company is above the law.”
It is a phrase that Ms. James herself has often relied on in describing the president, who has been her primary focus, legally and politically, for the better part of a decade.
In 2018, Mr. Trump was midway through his first term and deeply unpopular in his home state, where Ms. James was running to become attorney general. The fight against him became a key pillar of her campaign, as she pledged to sue him and called him “illegitimate.”
Her investigation into Mr. Trump began months after she was sworn in. For three years, her office interviewed more than 65 witnesses as lawyers questioned whether Mr. Trump had manipulated the value of his assets to reap benefits from lenders. In 2022, Ms. James filed her lawsuit, accusing Mr. Trump of overvaluing his riches by billions of dollars.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers — including Ms. Habba, now New Jersey’s U.S. attorney — cried foul on television and in legal filings, calling judges’ attention to Ms. James’s history of antagonism and arguing that her investigation amounted to political persecution.
But neither the state judge overseeing the case nor a federal judge who evaluated it found that Ms. James’s comments during her campaign provided a basis to suspend her investigation or to dismiss her lawsuit. Eventually, the state judge, Arthur F. Engoron, threatened to penalize Mr. Trump’s lawyers for continuing to argue that the case was politically motivated.
The lawsuit led to a trial that began in October 2023 and lasted months, with Justice Engoron presiding as both judge and de facto jury, as required by the statute under which the lawsuit was brought.
Ms. James’s lawyers sought to demonstrate that Mr. Trump had used falsified assets to hoodwink lenders into providing his businesses with more generous loan terms. The president’s lawyers argued that the private transactions had taken place between equally sophisticated actors, and that it was improper for the state attorney general to interfere.
Justice Engoron was persuaded by Ms. James’s case. In early 2024, he found Mr. Trump liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordered him to pay a penalty that, with interest, exceeded $450 million.
Mr. Trump appealed, and in oral arguments in a New York appeals court, some judges appeared sympathetic to his lawyers’ arguments.
“There has to be some limit on what the attorney general can do in interfering in these private transactions,” said one of the judges, Peter Moulton.
The court has yet to rule.
Maggie Haberman and Hurubie Meko contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in the New York region for The Times. He is focused on political influence and its effect on the rule of law in the area’s federal and state courts.
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