A federal grand jury in Virginia has indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on a bank fraud charge following an investigation into alleged wrongdoing during the signing of a mortgage. James, who famously took President Donald Trump to trial in 2023 over inflated property valuations, described the allegations as politically motivated.
“We will vigorously fight these unfounded accusations, and my office will continue to defend the rights of New Yorkers,” she said. “This is yet another example of the president’s desperate weaponisation of the justice system. He is compelling federal law enforcement to act on his behalf simply because I did my job.”
The indictment comes just two weeks after former FBI Director James Comey faced similar charges — both cases reportedly driven by sustained pressure from President Trump. During his campaign and since returning to office, Trump has repeatedly vowed to prosecute those he considers political adversaries.
Over the weekend, he called for James’s resignation on social media, branding her a “total and absolute disaster” and labelling her case against him a “witch hunt.”
In her statement, James accused the president of seeking “political revenge at any cost,” calling his actions “a grave violation of our Constitutional order” and noting that criticism has come from members of both major parties.
James, a Democrat, previously sued Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, for overstating asset values to secure favourable terms from banks and insurers. Trump was initially ordered to pay more than $450 million in penalties for business fraud, though the fine was overturned in August.
Alongside James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, also a Democrat, has reportedly faced similar political pressure. Bragg brought the Stormy Daniels case, in which Trump was convicted on 34 counts related to hush money payments, though the sentence was indefinitely suspended after his return to the presidency.
At a campaign event last year, Trump called for both James and Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the civil fraud case, to be “arrested and punished accordingly.”
Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia subsequently launched an inquiry, though one senior Republican prosecutor reportedly resigned after concluding there was insufficient evidence against James. He was replaced by Lindsey Halligan, a former Florida lawyer with limited prosecutorial experience.
Halligan has since obtained formal indictments against several of Trump’s critics, including Comey, who pleaded not guilty this week to two counts of allegedly lying to Congress.
James condemned Halligan’s appointment as “a blatant perversion of the judicial system.” She added: “The decision to remove a federal prosecutor who refused to charge me — and replace him with someone loyal not to the law, but to the president — undermines the foundations of American democracy. Leaders of both parties must speak out against this abuse of power.”
The case represents the latest in a series of federal actions targeting Trump’s political opponents since his second term began. James, who briefly ran for governor of New York in 2021, maintains her innocence and insists the case is politically driven.
Critics say the president has eroded the independence of the Department of Justice by replacing career officials with loyalists and by intervening directly in cases, including the corruption investigation involving New York Mayor Eric Adams.