Norfolk, Virginia — New York Attorney General Letitia James will be appearing in court Friday for her arraignment on federal charges of bank fraud in Norfolk, Virginia, after the Justice Department indicted her earlier this month.
U.S. District Judge Jamar Walker, appointed to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden, is presiding over the case.
The indictment alleges that James misrepresented how she would use a house she bought in Norfolk in 2020, in order to obtain a lower interest rate on her mortgage. Instead of using the property as a second home, the indictment says, she rented it to a family member, treating it as an investment property, in contravention of the mortgage terms.
According to the indictment, James purchased the home for $137,000 and borrowed $109,600 — and because she received more favorable lending terms and a larger seller credit, she allegedly saved $18,933 over the life of the loan.
James called the charges “baseless” in a video statement.
“This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system,” she said.
James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, said James “flatly and forcefully denies these charges” and said he is “deeply concerned that this case is driven by President Trump’s desire for revenge.”
In a pair of legal filings Thursday, James’ legal team took aim at the Trump-appointed prosecutor overseeing her bank fraud case, accusing interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan of an improper conversation with a journalist and vowing to seek dismissal of the indictment on the grounds that Halligan was unlawfully named to the job.
Days before James was indicted, a grand jury impaneled by the same federal prosecutor’s office handed up an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, on charges of lying to Congress, with whom Mr. Trump clashed during his first term.
Last month, Mr. Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey and James, as well as Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, another vocal critic of his administration.
The Justice Department launched a criminal probe into James in May regarding mortgage fraud. Three months later, it expanded its investigation into the Office of the New York Attorney General’s handling of the Trump Organization probe.
In February 2024, the state of New York won a civil fraud judgment against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization for $354 million in fines for submitting what the judge said was “blatantly false financial data” to accountants in order to borrow more money at more favorable interest rates.
The ruling also barred the Trump Organization from seeking loans from financial institutions in New York for three years and also banned Mr. Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years. An appellate court erased the fine in August, but James is appealing the ruling. The court kept the other sanctions in place, however.
Mr. Trump announced last month that he had selected Halligan, a former White House aide, to temporarily lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia after the abrupt ouster of the prosecutor he had originally named to the post, Erik Siebert.
Sources told CBS News that Halligan presented evidence to the Comey and Letitia James grand juries alone, rather than with line prosecutors who had worked on the cases. Since Halligan became the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, several prosecutors have left the office or been fired.
Two federal prosecutors in the office, Kristin Bird and Elizabeth Yusi, were terminated last week from their posts as assistant U.S. attorneys in the Norfolk office after they voiced opposition to the criminal case against James. The office’s top national security official, Michael Ben’Ary, was also terminated in recent weeks.
As a result of the turnover, two North Carolina federal prosecutors have been brought in to handle the Comey case, and a federal prosecutor from Missouri will be presenting the James case.
