Yep, Trump's Personal Lawyer Indicted NY AG Letitia James For Definitely NOT For Indicting Trump First!
He's not the fraud, she's the FRAUD!
So Trump’s personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan really did it, got a grand jury to indict the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, on two FELONY counts in the Eastern District of Virginia: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 30 years and $1 million American dollars! And Halligan had to do all that prosecuting by herself, because apparently no one else in the office would sign on. Trump even had to remove the previous acting US Attorney, Erik Siebert, whom Trump himself had appointed, after he refused to take a case against James to a grand jury.
PREVIOUSLY!
James’s indictment is not about the property she helped her niece buy, but a second property in Norfolk for which she took out a whopping $109,600 loan. The indictment claims that under the second home rider, James was supposed to use the property as her sole residence, but instead she rented it out, saving her about “$18,933 over the life of the loan.”
As it happens, mortgage-fraud-for-a-second-home is also what the administration has accused Fed Board of Governors member Lisa Cook of, as an excuse for Trump to fire her from the board, though no charges have been filed against HER yet. (Two lower courts have blocked her firing, and the Supreme Court declined to grant the administration’s emergency request to remove her now, but will hear arguments in January.)
And funny enough, also accused of second-home-claiming fraud, the father and stepmother of Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump’s appointee as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the flunky who has been tasked with digging through loan documents to try to make TRUMP NOT FRAUD, YOU ARE FRAUD charges against his political enemies! Reuters found that since 2020, the elder Pulte and wife have claimed so-called “homestead exemptions” for two residences in wealthy neighborhoods in both Michigan and Florida at the same time. Did that stop the younger Pulte from going on Fox News to opine that James’s filings were “riddled with mortgage fraud”? You bet it didn’t!
Because it’s no secret whom the law is supposed to punish or protect under Donald John Trump! He’s been on the warpath and pig-biting wet-hen MAD ever since James succeeded in bringing those FRAUD charges against him in 2024 for making his properties worth less at tax time and more at loan time. BLATANTLY. (Not to be confused with the 34 felony fraud charges Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg got him convicted of!)
REMEMBER WHEN?
Who can forget him claiming Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million for the Palm Beach taxman, but $1.8 BILLION for bragging purposes? Or Trump and his Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg’s years-long campaign to convince loan companies and Forbes magazine Trump’s penthouse was more than three times the actual square footage that it is, or valuing property in a protected wildlife preserve as if it already had condos on it. All that from the guy who constantly claims he knows more about real estate than anybody!
And so Trump was found liable for fraud, fined $364 million dollars plus interest, and he, Weisselberg, and controller Jeffrey McConney were given a three-year ban on running any business entities in New York, and Trump’s two older fug sons were also banned for two years. And the Trump Org was appointed a babysitter to watch its books for three years.
Remember how Trump was all like, all that frauding was just fine, actually, because banks and insurance companies weren’t really hurt hurt by his companies getting favorable loan terms?! But accuse others of that which you are guilty, and all that.
This August, a New York appeals court ruled that the fine was too high (with interest it was more than $515 million by that point), and put the other punishments on hold, but the President and his sons still remain adjudicated FRAUDS. The fact remains that Trump isn’t a success because he’s some genius businessman, he bested his business rivals through illegal means. And if young Trump had just stuck his daddy Fred’s money — an inheritance the equivalent of $532 million today — in investment accounts and kicked back living the life of a nepo scion, he would have been richer than if he’d put it into all those companies that went bankrupt. Trump’s business fraud ruling, teed up by a BLACK LADY PROSECUTOR, no less, destroyed not only Trump’s image of being a success personally, but the fragile facade of white male supremacy, too.
And so Trump has been honking for James’s scalp personally, along with James Comey, Adam Schiff, and all the others on his enemies list, but especially her, with a side of calling her nicknames and claiming she is RACIST. In 2022 Trump even tried to SUE James in Florida court for aggravated applying the law to him, but backed off after he and Alina Habba got fined $1 million for that Hillary Clinton LOLsuit.
But, the Supreme Court (or at least previous and sane iterations of it) has long held that prosecutorial vindictiveness is not allowed. And though Trump has been screaming that it was vindictiveness and weaponization when James went after him, there’s some notable differences. James is a prosecutor, and she made a campaign promise to “shine a bright light into every dark corner of [Trump’s] real estate dealings,” which is what she is supposed to be doing in that job. Judges have already rejected Trump’s POLITICAL PROSECUTION arglebargle, many times.
Trump’s fraud amounts were in the millions and part of a pattern that went on for more than 15 years, and James is alleged to have tried to bilk a loan company out of a whole $19k in one instance. And Halligan will also have to prove intent, and while Trump and his cronies helpfully left emails and notes all over the place demanding that Weisselberg massage some numbers, does it make sense that James would risk her entire career for that amount, and also be so Trump-stupid that she would leave evidence she was doing it on purpose? Sure, people have done dumber things for less (my former state Sen. Nathaniel “Lollipop” Oakes comes to mind), but, doesn’t seem likely.
And then there’s also how Trump has made weaponizing the federal government to tickle his fancy for vindictiveness his whole personality, installing the head of his Weaponization Working Group, Ed Martin, in the White House. Reports the WSJ:
He works from an office dubbed the “Freedom Suite” on one end of a hallway on the deputy attorney general’s fourth floor, which visitors have described as being decorated with oversize photos of Trump and a small cup of holy water on the wall.
There’s how Trump heaved to PAM on his web site to hurry up and go after his enemies already: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.” LOL. The WSJ also reports that his message really was supposed to be private, and Trump was “surprised to learn it was public.” Whoops! We told you his web site was glitchy!
Will Halligan succeed in securing convictions for James Comey and Letitia James? The cases sound as weaksauce as can be, but of course that’s never been a deterrent to Trump. Conservatives don’t love him for his morals or his manners, they love him for his willingness to sue and be sued, his disrespect for the institutions they hate, and his eagerness to act first and get permission later. The harassment is the point in itself. Sometimes the journey is the destination!
James is not the first political enemy Trump has tried to lock up, and surely won’t be the last. The New York Times reports the DOJ is trying to put together some kind of criminal case against former CIA chief and Trump critic John O. Brennan in Pennsylvania, but so far not much luck. And John Bolton got his house raided by the FBI in Maryland in August, but he has not been indicted yet. Also Christopher Wray is being investigated for planting FBI agents to do January 6, or something.
James’s first court appearance is scheduled for October 24 in Norfolk.
Last word to her.
[Indictment / WSJ gift link]
OT: This is not going to stop being funny for a while...
𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗹 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲
𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘵’𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘥.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-175763082
OT: Good Times!
MIT refuses to sign onto Trump's "compact" for universities to get federal funding. Hopefully more will do this.