The indictment comes after FBI Director James Comey was indicted in the same Alexandria, Virginia-based district.
On Thursday, court documents revealed that New York Attorney General Letitia James had been indicted by a federal grand jury for charges of bank fraud and making false statements about a property she owns.
The indictment comes after FBI Director James Comey was indicted in the same Alexandria, Virginia-based district.
The move to charge James—who was involved in a civil prosecution of President Donald Trump in relation to his valuation of his assets in bank documents—drew mixed reactions, with many Democrats condemning the news.
James has declared her innocence of the allegations.
Here’s what to know.
The Charges
In the indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District Court of Virginia, prosecutors accused James of criminal errors in a 2020 mortgage application.
The charges relate to a property that James purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in August 2020. In the application for a loan through Old Virginia Mortgage—which is backed by the federally-linked institution Fannie Mae—James affirmed that she would use the home personally and not rent it out.
Prosecutors allege she later rented the home out to a family of three. They say that this misrepresentation enabled James to obtain better loan terms than she would have been able to obtain on a rental property.
Both charges approved by the grand jury relate to this rental application.
The first charge is for bank fraud under 18 U.S. Code § 1344 and relates to the Old Virginia Mortgage component of the application.
The other charge, false statements to a financial institution under 18 U.S. Code § 1014, relates to the Fannie Mae component of the application.
If convicted, she could lose the property.
“No one is above the law,” U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, the recently-appointed lead prosecutor in the Eastern Virginia district, said in a statement on James’s indictment.
Her office said James could face up to 30 years in prison and up to $1 million in fines for each count, but notes that sentences for federal crimes are “typically less than the maximum penalties.”
By Joseph Lord
