New York Attorney General Letitia James pleaded not guilty Friday to federal charges in a fraud case involving mortgage records she signed in 2020.
James is a longtime antagonist of President Donald Trump, who publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to attack her weeks before she was impeached.
James pleaded not guilty to one count of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution during his arraignment in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
James has criticized the charges as “baseless,” calling his accusation “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate military use of our justice system.”
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, in a highly unusual move, personally presented evidence about James to a grand jury before it returned the indictment. U.S. attorneys typically have assistant U.S. attorneys who present evidence to grand juries.
James plans to file a motion Friday that will ask that his case be dismissed while challenging Halligan’s “illegal appointment,” the attorney general’s attorneys told Judge Jamar Walker on Thursday.
Halligan was appointed federal prosecutor after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump.
Siebert had opposed seeking indictments against James and former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump foe who was indicted after Halligan presented evidence to another grand jury.
Halligan previously served as one of Trump’s personal lawyers.
“Forcing a political opponent to appear in court to defend baseless criminal charges is something out of the ordinary. [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia, not the United States we know and love,” Defenders of Democracy Fund CEO Norm Eisen said in a statement on Friday.
“Donald Trump is destroying the rule of law just like he is tearing down the East Wing of the White House. All Americans should speak out about the unjust prosecution of Letitia James,” said Eisen, an outspoken critic of Trump who has been repeatedly criticized by the president.
The indictment against James alleges that he made false statements in documents he signed when he purchased a three-bedroom house in Norfolk that was financed with a mortgage loan of approximately $109,600.
An additional clause in that loan required James to occupy the house as a second residence and not rent it out. But the home “was instead used as a rental investment property” for a family of three, the indictment alleges.
The total of James’s alleged “ill-gotten gains” was only about $19,000 over the life of the loan he received, according to the indictment. Most of that money came from savings James allegedly received from having a lower interest rate on the mortgage than she would have paid if the home was classified as a rental investment property, the indictment says.
Prosecutors who investigated James, in a September memo, said they found evidence that appeared to undermine the prosecution’s allegations, ABC News reported Thursday, citing sources.
That evidence includes the amount James was to receive financially for his alleged mortgage misrepresentation: only about $800 in the year he bought the house, ABC reported.
Prosecutors also questioned whether the case could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, according to ABC.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
