Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, is accused of bank fraud in a mortgage investigation

Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, is being accused of bank fraud after Trump administration officials questioned her mortgage documents.

Accused of bank fraud in a mortgage lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James obtained a $454 million judgment against President Donald Trump last year for allegedly lying to banks about the worth of his assets on financial statements.

According to The Associated Press (AP), James became a co-borrower on the mortgage loan in the summer of 2023 to assist her niece in purchasing a small home in Norfolk, Virginia.

However, a document from that transaction has now been used by William Pulte, a key housing official in the Trump administration, to support his claim that James should face bank fraud charges. In a letter, he requests that the US Justice Department launch a criminal investigation into the Democrat.

The AP story also noted that the administration has launched a campaign of retaliation against Trump’s longstanding legal opponents, coinciding with the request for a probe. The accusations against her were deemed “baseless” by James.

She stated in an interview with the New York cable news network NY1 that it is merely a headline and payback for all the effective actions she has done against Donald Trump.

US Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Pulte cited “media reports” in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 14 requesting an investigation, stating that James had listed a Virginia home as her primary residence. Pulte conjectured that this was an attempt to circumvent the higher interest rates that people typically pay for second-home mortgages.

Pulte provided evidence in the form of a legal document James signed on August 17, 2023, granting her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, the right to sign paperwork related to the sale two weeks later. When someone involved in purchasing a home is unable to attend the closing, those paperwork are necessary.

The statement, “I hereby declare that I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence,” was included in that line.

“Ms. James was the siting Attorney General of New York at the time of the 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase and mortgage, and she is legally required 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 requesting an investigation.

However, James’ office supplied a partial copy of a loan application where she seemed to state that she had no intention of relocating to Virginia.

The question, “Will you occupy the property as your primary residence?” was posed to James on the application. The “no” option was checked by her.

“They are attacking the Attorney General with selectively chosen information as Donald Trump’s weaponization of the federal government continues to spiral out of control,” her office stated in a statement.

James stated on another section of the loan application that she was requesting joint credit with Thompson-Hairston, who planned to live in the house as her primary residence. When parents assist their children in purchasing a starter home, for example, such an agreement is not unusual among family members.

Based on the few publicly accessible documents, real estate attorneys told AP that it was hard to determine whether anything wrong had happened or if James had attempted to mislead anyone about where she planned to live.

A lawyer from Virginia told the AP that he had never before seen a power-of-attorney document that mentioned a principal residence. Bondi stated in a Fox News interview that Pulte’s letter would be examined by her staff.

James has owned a townhouse in New York City since 2001, and Pulte accused her of lying about how many flats it has.

In the Brooklyn building where James resides and has rented apartments to some tenants, a certificate of occupancy granted to a previous owner allowing up to five living units was noted in Pulte’s letter. The town house is listed as having four flats in several additional city records.

The structure has four units, as James has stated for years in both mortgage documentation and building permit applications. The report confirmed that previous press reports concerning the building had also mentioned that it had four flats.

According to Pulte, James may have fabricated the number of units to be eligible for federally backed mortgages that offered interest rates that building owners with more than four units could not get.

According to real estate experts in New York, differences in a building’s unit count are common when property is transferred and usually only attract the attention of authorities when the change enables an owner to take advantage of an inappropriate benefit, such evading rent laws.

“Going from five units to four units doesn’t really help her for regulatory and income-generating purposes,” said Andrew Scherer, a professor of housing law at the New York Law School. “It seems very unlikely that a difference of this nature would have legal ramifications on its own.”

According to James’ office, the building has four units, but the certificate of occupancy that stated it had five units existed before she bought it.

“The city’s Department of Buildings received anonymous complaints alleging James had unlawfully misclassified the property beginning in July 2023, just before the commencement of Trump’s civil fraud trial,” the study said.

“Why is she not facing charges for filing false documents and fraud when others have faced persecution for much less serious offenses?” one complaint stated.

The city’s Department of Buildings inspectors have not discovered any infractions. An inspection report from their most recent visit, which took place last Wednesday, found the complaint to be “unsubstantiated based on department records.”

The ruling against Trump that James won has been challenged by Trump’s attorneys. The president claims that he never misled anyone about how much his properties were worth.