By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch
NORFOLK, Va. (Reuters) – New York Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, is expected to plead not guilty in federal court on Friday to charges related to allegedly lying on mortgage documents.
James, a Democrat who last year obtained a $450 million civil fraud judgment against Trump, is one of three perceived enemies against whom the Republican president’s administration has filed criminal charges in the past month, along with former FBI Director James Comey and former national security adviser John Bolton. All three have denied wrongdoing.
Trump has vowed to seek retaliation against people he says used the justice system against him in an effort to prevent him from returning to power. He pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to accelerate action and replaced the previous U.S. attorney overseeing the James and Comey cases with a loyalist after the top prosecutor raised concerns about the strength of the evidence in both matters.
Two other Trump rivals, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, remain under criminal investigation and have also denied wrongdoing.
More than half of Americans, including about one in three Republicans, believe Trump is using federal law enforcement to target his enemies, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this month.
TRUMP’S ASSETS ON TARGET
Last year, James won a $454.2 million fine against Trump after a judge found he had fraudulently overstated his net worth to deceive lenders. In August, a New York state appeals court overturned the fine, which had grown to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld the trial judge’s conclusion that Trump was liable for fraud.
Both Trump’s and James’ offices are appealing to the state’s highest court.
A source familiar with Trump’s thinking said Trump’s anger toward James is particularly acute because of the challenges he faced when he struggled to secure bail to cover the sentence, putting him at risk of having his assets seized.
James became a target of the Justice Department after Trump ally Bill Pulte, who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, made a criminal referral that raised questions about whether James lied on his mortgage applications to get a more favorable interest rate.
Those types of cases are rarely prosecuted by the federal government, a Reuters analysis of eight years of court records showed.
The charges against James centered on a property he purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020 for about $137,000, about which neither of the Pultes initially raised questions.
The indictment alleges that James falsely told the bank that he would occupy the residence as a second home, when in fact he used it as an investment property. This alleged misrepresentation allowed him to receive a favorable interest rate that saved him nearly $19,000 over the life of the loan, the indictment says.
James faces two criminal charges, bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.
“We will aggressively fight these baseless allegations,” he said when the allegations were first brought forward.
James’ legal team has already indicated that it will seek to have the charges dismissed on the grounds that U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor appointed by Trump to lead the case, is serving in that role illegally. Comey has made a similar argument in his case.
In an unusual move, a lawyer who normally handles civil litigation from a U.S. attorney’s office in Missouri joined Halligan on the case, after prosecutors in Halligan’s Virginia office expressed skepticism about the James case.
U.S. District Judge Jamar Walker, appointed by former Democratic President Joe Biden, will hear the case.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Andrew Goudsward in Norfolk, Virginia; editing by Scott Malone and Nick Zieminski)