Let she without sin cast the first trumped-up lawsuit and drag people through years of lawfare Hades. As they say, what goes around often turns up drunk in your driveway at 3am and wants to have a long argument about something that happened back in college. But I digress. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story dripping with Schaudenfreude headlined, “Trump Official Scrutinizes N.Y.’s Attorney General Over Real Estate.” The sub-headline explained, “The head of a U.S. housing agency told prosecutors that Letitia James appeared to have falsified real estate records, a move that could be the start of an investigation.”
For the benefit of Portland readers, Letitia James is the New York State Attorney General —Heaven only knows why New Yorkers elected her— who in 2022 sued President Trump for allegedly falsifying his mortgage applications by overvaluing (in her opinion) his real estate holdings. With timely assistance from wispy-haired judge Arthur Engoran, she ultimately won and obtained the largest civil judgment ever levied against an individual person. (The case remains on appeal.)
But now the proverbial worm has turned, and is tunnelling into the Attorney General’s own mortgage applications.
You would think that any puffed-up prosecutor with two brain cells to rub together who was thinking about suing one of the most popular former presidents in history, would make absolutely sure her own record was completely spotless and unassailable, especially for the exact same thing she was thinking about prosecuting the former president for.
You would think, wouldn’t you?
Anyway, this particular dedicated public servant owns a bunch of investment property in New York, not on any Trump scale, but she’s doing very well for a career in government. Her net worth seems to be somewhere between $10M — $15M, and her disclosed investment real estate holdings are around $4M (her values, so presumably on the low side. She wouldn’t overvalue them, right?).
I could find no meaningly explanations for how James got wealthy. She makes $220K as State AG. I guess the sanctimonious prosecutor is a much better investor than she is an attorney general. Just like the rest of them.
Anyway, this week, Trump’s Housing Director, Bill Pulte, flagged some of James’ mortgage transactions and sent them to Pam Bondi at DOJ as a criminal referral. Among other things, in various loan applications, James allegedly claimed: to be married to her father (I’m not making that up), to be under financial duress from covid, to reside in the house shown above as her principal residence, and was, shall we say, generous with various facts related to the properties like how many units there were.
All those claims seem clearly intended to get better interest rates, the very same type of public injury she’d alleged against President Trump, since fraudulently-obtained interest rates increase everyone else’s rates, or so she’d successfully argued to Judge Engoran.
Director Pulte’s criminal referral helpfully suggested various criminal charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, and making false statements to a financial institution (the same charge levied against Trump), among others.
The obsequious Times sprang to her defense. It was just mistakes! Anyone could make them! She said them correctly on her other documents! Yes, yes, calm down Gray Lady, the pompous AG will get a chance to explain all that to the court. Just like Trump got a chance to explain why he picked the values he did, and like how the banks got a chance to testify that they were fine with his values.
Of course, one could argue that her different answers on different documents just makes things that much worse, but hey, I’m a lawyer, not… oh wait, this is lawyer territory. Yeah, it looks bad.
It’s wonderfully ironic and consistent with our theme of Nemesis, and delightfully in line with the Times’s obsession with its “revenge” narrative (even though Trump didn’t personally make the referral). But so far as we know, no criminal investigation has yet been opened by DOJ. We wait with hopeful expectation to find out what happens next.
Actually, you’d think before he backed her to be one of his lawfare attack dogs, Soros would have vetted her a little better. I guess lesson here is that if you are going to be a fascist lawfare scumbag, you must first be a scumbag. Let’s hope Tish is bled dry of resources and loses all her ill-gotten gain.
James needs a new job as Cleaning Lady if that old bat can dish out the rubbish then she should clean it all up
Trump’s notorious reputation for a dutiful revenge is going to be GLORIOUS!
The MEGA optics will bode well for the GOP in the midterms…