Defiant New York Attorney General Letitia James slammed President Donald Trump’s ‘desperate weaponization’ of the Department of Justice following a bombshell indictment accusing her of mortgage fraud. The attorney general – who has been a major critic of Trump and launched a successful civil lawsuit against him in February 2023 for business fraud – stood tall in a video response to the indictment Thursday evening.

‘This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system,’ she wrote on X. ‘I am not fearful – I am fearless,’ she declared, vowing: ‘We will fight these baseless charges aggressively and my office will continue to fiercely protect New Yorkers and their rights.’ In her video, James also accused the president of ‘forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York State Attorney General. ‘These charges are baseless and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost,’ she continued.

The attorney general went on to tell ‘leaders on both sides of the aisle to speak out against this blatant perversion of our system of justice.’ James has already gained the support of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who wrote that: ‘New Yorkers know @NewYorkStateAG James for her integrity, her independence and her relentless fight for justice. What we’re seeing today is nothing less than the weaponization of the Justice Department to punish those who hold the powerful accountable.’

James, who took office in 2019 after running on promises to investigate Trump, was indicted Thursday in federal court in Virginia on one count each of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. She has been under investigation for mortgage fraud since May over documents she filed to take out a mortgage to help her niece buy a home in Virginia. Investigators have said that James falsified information on loan documents for a property she owns in Virginia to secure favorable loans. The indictment, obtained by the Daily Mail, claims she signed a ‘Second Home Rider, which required James, as the sole borrower, to occupy and use the property as her secondary residence, and prohibits its use as a timesharing or other shared ownership agreement or agreement that requires her to rent the property or give any other person control over the occupancy or use of the property.

‘Despite these representations, the Peronne Property was not occupied by James as a secondary residence and was instead used as a rental investment property, renting the property to a family of [three],’ it continues. In making the ‘misrepresentation,’ the prosecutors allege James received a avoided a 0.815 percent higher mortgage rate, resulting in approximately $17,837 in savings over the course of the loan and was able to obtain a seller credit of approximately $3,288. James now faces penalties including up to 30 years in prison per count, up to a $1 million fine on each count and forfeiture of her properties.

‘No one is above the law,’ U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan said in a statement. ‘The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of public trust,’ she claimed. ‘The facts and the law in this case are clear and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.’ But James’ attorneys claim the allegations were related to a single document on her mortgage application that ‘mistakenly’ said it would be her primary residence. The lawyers have released documents they say prove she mistakenly ticked a box to say the Virginia mortgage was for her primary residence. This includes an email to her loan originator that made clear, ‘this property WILL NOT be my primary residence’, according to CNN.

Former US Attorney Erik Sieber even reportedly resigned from his position after resisting pressure from the White House to bring charges against James and former FBI James Comey. Sieber was then replaced by Halligan, who has also begun a bombshell prosecution against the former FBI chief. Sources now tell MSNBC they are bracing for Elizabeth Yusi, a prosecutor from the Eastern Division of Virginia, to also be fired after she said she, too, found no probable cause in the investigation. James’ indictment now comes after she sued the Trump administration to block actions taken by the White House concerning federal funding to New York.

The attorney general has also frequently been attacked by the president for her civil lawsuit accusing him of business fraud, in which she went after Trump, his adult sons and his real estate empire. A New York judge found them liable for fraudulently inflating the value of Trump properties in September 2023, and the president was hit with a $355 million fine. He has since appealed the ruling. Meanwhile in April of this year, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Trump ally Bill Pulte, sent a letter to the DOJ, accusing James of falsifying records related to her properties in Virginia and Brooklyn.

The timing of her indictment has now stirred criticism of the Trump administration. U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat who led the House of Representatives’ inquiry that led to Trump’s impeachment in 2019 and is now facing his own mortgage fraud investigation, said James’ indictment is just part of a ‘campaign of vindictive prosecution’ by the president against his political enemies, comparing Trump to former President Richard Nixon. ‘We had nothing like the kind of brutal, antidemocratic, corrupt abuse of the department that we see under Donald Trump,’ he claimed. ‘It is truly unprecedented.’ Sen. Chuck Schumer also declared that James’ indictment ‘is what tyranny looks like. ‘This isn’t justice. It’s revenge and it should horrify every American who believes no one is above the law,’ he said.

Still, Trump has maintained that the New York attorney general ‘is very guilty of something,’ saying so in a mid-September Q&A session in the Oval Office with reporters. In that same back-and-forth, he expressed his displeasure with Sieber, saying: ‘I want him out,’ before the prosecutor resigned and was replaced by Halligan, a former White House aide who previously served as the president’s defense attorney. She had no prior prosecutorial experience. The Justice Department has also opened mortgage fraud probes into Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden. Neither Schiff nor Cook has been charged with a crime, and they both deny wrongdoing.