A Trump administration official filed two charges Wednesday against New York Attorney General Letitia James months after the Justice Department failed for the third time in its efforts to prosecute President Donald Trump’s target.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte alleges in their filing that James committed insurance fraud, saying he may have falsified information on homeowners insurance claims about living in two houses in Norfolk, Virginia, according to documents obtained by NBC News.
One was forwarded to US Attorney Jason Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida and the other to US Attorney Andrew Boutros for the Northern District of Illinois, as the insurance companies for these two separate claims, each from a different Norfolk area, are based in those areas.
“According to insurance documents published on X.com by attorney and media personality, Mike Davis (@mrddmia), it appears that state official, Ms. Letitia James, may have had false information on her home owners insurance application,” Pulte wrote in the post.
He added that based on Davis’ information, James made false representations to insurance companies.
The information Davis posted were publicly available court documents from a previous criminal case against James in the Eastern District of Virginia.
MS NOW first reported on the crime posting.
In referring Boutros, Pulte wrote that James “made representations that the house would be occupied by one adult, with no children. Instead, according to the post, he knew the house was actually occupied by four people – three children and his nephew.”
In a letter sent to Quiñones, Pulte said James “falsely stated that his place would not be occupied for five months of the year. According to the post, this is false. In fact, the house was occupied by his nephew for the whole year.”
James’ attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, said in a statement that “Trump and his political administration continue to abuse their power to prosecute the case by trying to reframe, reframe, and repeat baseless allegations.”
“They are continuing this campaign of unfair revenge instead of helping to reduce the rising cost of living in this country,” said Lowell. “These tactics will fail – as all previous efforts have failed – and expose an Administration that has abandoned its responsibility to the American people in search of political payback.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
Pulte was responsible for sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department last year against James and other prominent Trump critics, including Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. All have denied wrongdoing.
The Justice Department has tried unsuccessfully to prosecute James three times on mortgage-related charges, with the latest effort failing in December after a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, declined to indict him.
The week before that, the Department of Justice failed to find a new case against James in Norfolk. In November, a federal judge dismissed the criminal charges against James, finding that the prosecutor, Trump appointee Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed in his place as interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The October lawsuit alleges that James lied about the house in Norfolk as his second home to get a large loan and rent it out to a family of three. This came shortly after Trump publicly called on US Attorney General Pam Bondi to target James and other perceived political enemies.
James sued Trump in September 2022 alleging that he and the Trump Organization committed more than 200 frauds over 10 years. That led to convictions for Trump and top executives at the company, including a $464 million civil fraud penalty. The sentence was overturned on appeal in August. Some appeals judges agreed that Trump and his companies committed fraud but agreed with their colleagues that the award was “an excessive fine.”
