Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
The US Department of Justice has indicted Letitia James after Donald Trump called for legal action against the New York attorney-general who had brought a case against him.
James faces two criminal counts, including bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, in relation to a loan application.
The indictment comes just days after former FBI director James Comey, also one of Trump’s perceived opponents, was charged with lying to and obstructing Congress. He has pleaded not guilty.
In a social media post last month Trump urged US attorney-general Pam Bondi to take legal action against James as well as Comey.
James on Thursday called the charges “baseless,” adding they were “nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponisation of our justice system”. His “own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost”, she said.
Her initial court appearance is set for October 24.
The indictments against James and Comey mark an extraordinary step up in the Trump’s attacks against his political enemies. They also intensify fears among the president’s critics that he is using the DoJ as a vehicle for personal retaliation — accusations rejected by the justice department.
The pair of cases comes after the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who was in charge of the investigations, resigned — and soon after Trump picked Lindsey Halligan, his former personal lawyer, to replace him.
Neither indictment bore the signature of any career prosecutors at the US attorney’s office and were signed only by Halligan.
After James’s indictment was filed, Bondi wrote in a post on X: “One tier of justice for all Americans.”
The DoJ alleges James used a property in Virginia as a rental investment rather than a secondary residence, as required by the mortgage she used to finance its purchase.
“This misrepresentation allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms not available for investment properties,” according to the indictment.
James in 2022 sued Trump, the Trump Organization, his three adult children and others in a landmark civil fraud case that led to a roughly $500mn penalty against the president.
A New York court in August overturned the penalty for being excessive, but did not throw out the lower court’s 2024 verdict that found Trump and other defendants, including his elder sons, liable for civil fraud.
James at the time vowed to appeal against the ruling to New York’s highest court.
Additional reporting by Kaye Wiggins in New York
