New York State Attorney General Letitia James warned Friday that President Donald Trump is using the American justice system as a “tool of revenge.”
After pleading not guilty to charges related to committing mortgage fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, James delivered remarks outside of the federal courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia.
She thanked her supporters, who cheered her as she spoke. “But this is not about me, this is about all of us,” James said. “And about a justice system which has been weaponized. A justice system which has been used as a tool of revenge.”
James added that the president was using the justice system as a “vehicle of retribution” against his perceived political enemies.
But Trump’s crusade against his critics is far from over. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi admitted Friday that the Trump administration had already set its sights on another of the president’s foes: former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That announcement follows the federal indictments of James, former FBI Director James Comey, and former national security adviser John Bolton.
The DOJ effort against James, led by inexperienced Trump-appointed interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan, accused New York state’s chief legal officer of duplicitously acquiring a second home. James is accused of renting the home out as an “investment property,” collecting “thousands” in rent money, and saving over $17,000 in the process. But prosecutors charged with investigating James discovered evidence that undermined the government’s allegations that James collected significant rent from her niece Nakia Thompson.
James’s ethics disclosures revealed that she had previously collected rent on the property—but only once in 2020, and for a sum between $1,000 and $5,000. Prosecutors found that James allowed Thompson and her family to live in the house rent-free in 2020, and James only reported collecting $1,350 in rent money on her tax return from that year. After prosecutors warned U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, and he declined to take up the case, he was summarily sacked and replaced by Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Thompson had previously testified before a grand jury that “she had lived in the house for years and that she did not pay rent.” However, that wasn’t the grand jury that indicted her aunt, and Thompson was not asked to testify again in the case.
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