•Letitia James
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted President Donald Trump, was indicted yesterday.
The indictment was handed down by a federal grand jury in Virginia, where charges were also recently brought against another Trump foe, former FBI director James Comey.
According to CNN and other US media outlets, the indictment of the 66-year-old James, a Democrat, is for mortgage fraud and concerns a property she helped her niece buy in Virginia in 2023.
The cases against James and Comey were filed by the Republican president’s handpicked US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, after the previous prosecutor resigned, saying there was not enough evidence to bring charges against them.
The Washington Post said Halligan personally presented the case to the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia.
Trump recently publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against James, Comey and others he sees as enemies in an escalation of his campaign of retribution against political opponents.
After Trump left the White House in 2021, James brought a major civil fraud case against him, alleging he and his real estate company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.
A New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $464 million, but a higher court later removed the financial penalty while upholding the underlying judgment.
In addition to James and Comey, Trump has also publicly called for the prosecution of Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and his own former National Security Advisor, John Bolton.
The indictments of James and Comey came after the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, stepped down after reportedly telling Justice Department leaders there was insufficient evidence to charge them.
Vindictive prosecution
Comey, 64, the former FBI chief, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
The judge scheduled a trial date of January 5. Comey faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said he intends to file a motion seeking to have the case dismissed on the grounds it is a vindictive and selective prosecution.
Comey’s indictment stems from sworn testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 on the probe he led into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
He is accused of falsely stating that he had not authorised another FBI employee to be an anonymous source in news reports.
Comey was appointed to head the FBI by then-president Barack Obama in 2013 and was fired by Trump in 2017 amid the probe into whether any members of the Trump presidential campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 vote.
Since taking office in January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.
