BREAKING: New York Attorney General Letitia James Accused of Bank Fraud In Mortgage Investigation

New York Attorney General, Letitia James, who won a $454 million judgment against President Donald Trump last year, claiming he had lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks, has been accused of alleged bank fraud in a mortgage case.

In the summer of 2023, James helped her niece buy a modest house in Norfolk, Virginia, by becoming a co-borrower on the mortgage loan, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

But a top housing official in the Trump administration, William Pulte, has now seized on a document in that transaction to argue that James should be prosecuted for bank fraud, asking the US Justice Department in a letter to open a criminal investigation into the Democrat.

The request for an investigation comes as the administration has pursued a campaign of retribution against Trump’s longtime foes in the legal world, the AP report added. James called the allegations against her “baseless.”

“It is nothing more than a headline, nothing more than retaliation against all the actions I have taken successfully against Donald Trump,” she said in an interview on the New York cable news station NY1.

In an April 14 letter to Attorney General, Pam Bondi, asking for an investigation, US Federal Housing Finance Agency Director, Pulte cited “media reports” claiming James had falsely listed a home in Virginia as her principal residence, which he hypothesised was an effort to avoid the higher interest rates people often pay for mortgages on second homes.

As evidence, Pulte cited a legal form James signed on August 17, 2023, in which she gave her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, the authority to sign documents on her behalf in connection with the sale two weeks later. Those forms are required when a person involved in buying a house can’t be present for the closing.

That form included a line that says, “I hereby declare that I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence.”

“At the time of the 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase and mortgage, Ms. James was the siting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York — even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA property as her primary home,” Pulte wrote in the letter asking for an investigation.

James’ office, however, shared a partial copy of a loan application in which she appeared to disclose that she didn’t intend to live in Virginia.

On the application, James was asked the question, “Will you occupy the property as your primary residence?” She checked the box that said “no.”

“Donald Trump’s weaponisation of the federal government continues to careen out of control – and now they are using cherry-picked information to attack the Attorney General,” her office said in a statement.

On another part of the loan application, James indicated she was applying for joint credit with Thompson-Hairston, who intended to use the home as her primary residence. That kind of arrangement isn’t uncommon between family members, such as when parents help their children buy a starter home.

Real estate lawyers who spoke to AP said it was difficult to tell, based on the limited number of documents available publicly, whether anything improper had taken place or whether James had tried to deceive anyone about where she intended to live.

One Virginia lawyer told the AP he had never seen a power-of-attorney form before that had a reference to a primary residence. Bondi said in an interview on Fox News that her office would review Pulte’s letter.

Pulte also accused James of lying about the number of apartments in a New York City town house she has owned since 2001.

Pulte’s letter cited a certificate of occupancy issued to a previous owner authorising up to five living units in the Brooklyn building, where James lives and has rented apartments to some tenants. Multiple other city records indicate that the town house has four units.

James has indicated in building permit applications and in mortgage documents for years that the building has four units. Past news articles about the building have also referred to it as having four units, the report confirmed.

Pulte speculated that James had misrepresented the number of units in order to qualify for federally backed mortgages offering interest rates unavailable to the owners of buildings with more than four units.

Experts in New York real estate said discrepancies about the number of units in a building aren’t uncommon when property changes hands and typically only draw scrutiny from regulators when the change allows an owner to reap some improper advantage, such as skirting rent regulations.

“For regulatory and income-generating purposes, going from five units to four units doesn’t really help her,” said Andrew Scherer, a professor at New York Law School focused on housing law. “It seems highly unlikely that this kind of a difference would in and of itself be legally consequential.”

James’ office said the building has four units and noted that the certificate of occupancy listing it as having five predated her ownership.

Beginning in July 2023, shortly before the start of Trump’s civil fraud trial, the city’s Department of Buildings began receiving anonymous complaints claiming James had illegally misclassified the property, the report stated.

“Why is she not being prosecuted for fraud and filing false documents when other people have been persecuted for far less crimes,” one complaint read.

Inspectors with the city’s Department of Buildings have found no violations. During their most recent visit last Wednesday, an inspection report determined the complaint was “unsubstantiated based on department records.”

Trump’s lawyers have appealed the judgment that James won against him. The president says he didn’t mislead anyone about the value of his properties.