{"id":24440,"date":"2025-11-24T17:54:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24440"},"modified":"2025-11-24T17:54:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T17:54:03","slug":"doj-pushes-back-on-letitia-james-claims-of-political-persecution-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/?p=24440","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Pushes Back On Letitia James\u2019 Claims Of Political Persecution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Federal prosecutors on Friday described the criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James as a \u201cgarden variety mortgage fraud prosecution,\u201d urging a judge to allow the case to proceed. The federal indictment charges James with two counts: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. If convicted on both counts, she faces\u00a0up to 60 years in prison<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0fines totaling up to $2 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In a filing, government attorneys pushed back against James\u2019s legal team, which has argued the charges should be dismissed because the case was initiated to punish one of President Donald Trump\u2019s most prominent critics.<\/p>\n

The prosecution was brought by U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump appointed. Halligan filed the case just weeks after Trump publicly called for criminal charges against several of his political opponents, despite reported objections from some career prosecutors within her office.<\/p>\n

But there has been no evidence presented by James\u2019 defense team to prove she\u2019s been maliciously prosecuted for being a political opponent of the president.<\/p>\n

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By comparison, she ran her first campaign for New York AG in 2018 on a platform to \u2018get Trump,\u2019 which she later did by successfully prosecuting him on similar mortgage fraud charges.<\/p>\n

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She initially won a massive $454 million fine from him in the civil case but a court later found that wildly excessive and dramatically lowered it. And she is currently leading several lawsuits against the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal courts must not allow defendants to escape a facially valid indictment supported by evidence because of public disputes between elected officials,\u201d prosecutors wrote in Friday\u2019s court filing.<\/p>\n

Responding to claims that the case is a vindictive prosecution, federal prosecutors acknowledged that Trump\u2019s public comments about James \u2014 including remarks that \u201cshe\u2019s very guilty\u201d \u2014 have fluctuated from \u201cdisdain to deference.\u201d<\/p>\n

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However, they argued that the decision to pursue an indictment was made solely by Halligan,\u00a0ABC News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remarks of presidents and state attorneys general are important, but they do not have any bearing on the evidence on which the United States and the grand jury have relied in proceeding with indictment,\u201d federal prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors sought to distance the case from Ed Martin, the special attorney for mortgage matters within the administration, who, before the indictment, had participated in a newspaper photo shoot in front of James\u2019 residence and urged her to step down.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors sought to distance the case from Ed Martin, the special attorney for mortgage matters within the administration, who, before the indictment, had participated in a newspaper photo shoot in front of James\u2019 residence and urged her to step down.<\/p>\n

The attorneys argued that Martin\u2019s highly unusual target letter \u201cdiscloses the government\u2019s perspective on how Defendant can timely accept responsibility and demonstrate respect for the law,\u201d and does not demonstrate vindictiveness, ABC noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendant makes much of the involvement of Ed Martin. Martin is not the United States Attorney, he did not sign the Indictment, and he was not the decision-maker in this process,\u201d the filing said.<\/p>\n

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James has pleaded not guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. Prosecutors allege she misrepresented a property she bought in Norfolk, Virginia, claiming it was a second home rather than an investment property in order to secure a lower mortgage rate. James has said she purchased the home in 2020 for her great-niece and allowed her and her children to live there rent-free.<\/p>\n

In their filing on Friday, prosecutors argued that the case is not a politically motivated effort to target one of Trump\u2019s most vocal critics, but instead a routine matter, calling it a \u201cgarden variety mortgage fraud prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The submission contained what the prosecutors allege is a text message from James dated 2024, which they claim shows she was aware that her actions were improper.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to take deduction,\u201d the message says. \u201cIt looks suspicious and I need to do everything according to the tax code.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Getty Images This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion. Federal prosecutors on Friday described the criminal case against New York Attorney General Letitia James as a \u201cgarden … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24441,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24440\/revisions\/24441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cndailynews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}