Letitia James, the rabidly anti-Trump attorney general of New York, is now officially under criminal investigation in connection with the fraud allegations that surfaced last month.
Reports indicate that James has repeatedly falsified real estate documents dating all the way back to 1983, when she and her father apparently listed themselves as husband and wife.
‘I HEREBY DECLARE that I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence.’
In 2001, James purchased a multi-unit residence in Brooklyn and then listed the residence as having only four units when previous filings listed the property as having five units. In a letter sent last month to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte claimed that James fudged the number of units to qualify for a conforming loan from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
More recently, in August 2023, James and a relative purchased a home in Norfolk, Virginia. In a specific power of attorney document related to the purchase, James stated: “I HEREBY DECLARE that I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence.” New York law requires all statewide officeholders like James to reside in New York full-time.
According to Pulte, these misrepresentations of facts would have helped James “secure a lower mortgage rate” and mortgage-related “government assistance.” Pulte requested that the Department of Justice investigate James for possible crimes such as wire, mail, and bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.
Presumably in response to Pulte’s criminal referral, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albany have now opened a criminal investigation into James. The Guardian reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Maryland have already impaneled a grand jury to consider the evidence, and the Washington Post reported that a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia has likewise subpoenaed evidence for the allegations regarding the Norfolk home.
The FBI and James’ office declined a request for comment from the New York Post.
James has characterized the allegations as “baseless” and accused the Trump administration of retaliating against her for suing the Trump Organization. In that lawsuit, James leveled allegations that resemble those she now faces, accusing Trump and his associates of overvaluing properties to secure better lending terms with banks and insurance companies.
Though a New York jury sided with James in the Trump lawsuit and issued a staggering $450 million judgment, that case remains under appeal and a New York appeals court has already signaled support for overturning or at least reducing it.
‘One of those references to her being her father’s “wife” was just below her signature.’
Because of that litigation, the New York AG’s office hired an attorney to represent James, a move that indicates state taxpayers will be funding James’ legal representation even as she fights allegations that she committed mortgage fraud in a private capacity.
Moreover, the attorney the office hired, Abbe Lowell, has made a name for himself representing anti-Trump Democrats and their allies. For instance, Lowell was in the news recently for representing Hunter Biden in the weapons and tax-evasion cases against him. Biden was convicted in both cases, but his father, former President Joe Biden, pardoned Hunter in his final weeks in office even after repeatedly promising he would not do so.
In response to Pulte’s letter about James, Lowell sent his own letter to Bondi that insisted the accusations against his client were “long-disproven” and the evidence “cherry-picked.”
Lowell claimed that in 1983, when James was 24 years old and fresh out of law school, her father filled out the mortgage application “without his daughter’s involvement.” A screenshot of the document appears to show Letitia James’ signature on it, and even the Times Union noted that “one of those references to her being her father’s ‘wife’ was just below her signature.”
Letitia James, 66, has never been married.
Lowell also claimed that other city documents list James’ Brooklyn residence as having only four units and that James has used the building as a four-unit residence since she purchased it in 2001. The Times Union expressed doubt that “as the property owner, James had the ability to declare the residence would be four units instead of five for tax and financing purposes.”
In connection with the purchase of the Virginia property in 2023, Lowell claimed that two weeks before the power-of-attorney document, James wrote to the mortgage broker, “This property WILL NOT be my primary residence,” adding that it would be the primary residence of the relative with whom she made the purchase. “The broker understood this,” Lowell insisted and designated James as a “non-occupying co-borrower.”
While James and her attorney have made rejoinders against the allegations, legal scholar Jonathan Turley called the evidence against her “damning” and noted that in her ruthless pursuit of Trump, James may have unwittingly set a legal standard that she will be unable to meet.
“She insisted that these technicalities matter and that the powerful should not be given a free pass,” Turley told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on April 15. “Well, that bill has come due.”
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Abbe lowell, Donald trump, Fraud, Hunter biden, Letitia james, Mortgage fraud, New york, Politics
