NY Attorney General Letitia James pleads not guilty in bank fraud case brought by Trump DOJ

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Oct 24, 2025

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New York Attorney General Letitia James pleaded not guilty in a fraud case brought by one of President Donald Trump’s handpicked Justice Department officials at a hearing in Virginia on Friday.

James entered a plea of not guilty to counts of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution before Federal Judge Jamar Walker in the federal court in Norfolk, a spokesman for her office confirmed to the New York Daily News.

She addressed the media shortly after the proceedings. Walker, a Biden appointee, set a tentative trial date for Jan. 26.

The charges against James allege she rented a Norfolk property she purchased in 2020 to a family after claiming in mortgage papers she would use it as a secondary residence. The case alleges the AG could have netted $18,933 in ill-gotten gains over the life of the mortgage loan.

The AG says the prosecution stems from pure political retribution. Less than a year before Trump was reelected in 2024, he spent months on trial in James’ sweeping civil fraud case against the Trump Organization. He was ultimately found liable, along with his sons and top company executives, for lying to banks and lenders about his net worth by billions of dollars for years.

Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and one of Trump’s former personal lawyers, pursued the case against New York’s top law enforcement official shortly after Trump appointed her to the top job in September. She had no previous prosecutorial experience.

Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, quit after facing a pressure campaign to prosecute James and another longtime Trump target, former FBI Director James Comey, on charges Siebert believed were unsupported. Comey was indicted in September for allegedly lying to Congress, a case pursued by Halligan as well.

The president has disparaged both officials endlessly and made no secret of his desire to use the federal government’s enforcement powers against his political enemies.

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