DOJ subpoenas New York Attorney General Letitia James over Trump's civil fraud case

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Aug 8, 2025

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NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice on Friday issued a subpoena to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office related to a new investigation over the civil fraud case she won against him, the same day prosecutors stepped up a separate mortgage fraud probe against her.

A subpoena from the acting U.S. Attorney in Albany demanded information about James’ successful lawsuit against Trump and his family real estate firm for overvaluing assets to gain favorable financing terms. The DOJ is pursuing the matter as a civil rights violation.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also separately appointed a “special attorney” to probe unspecified mortgage fraud allegations against James, several media outlets reported Friday.

Ed Martin, an ultra-conservative legal activist and onetime interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., was tapped to investigate the mortgage allegations against James, along with similar claims against Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., another vocal Trump critic.

The legal broadsides against James escalate Trump’s efforts toward retribution against his perceived adversaries, critics say. Included are those like James who had investigated him after he lost the 2020 election and before his return to the White House.

A spokesman for the state attorney general’s office declined to confirm the subpoenas but issued a statement denouncing “any weaponization of the justice system.”

“We stand strongly behind our successful litigation against the Trump Organization and we will continue to stand up for New Yorkers’ rights,” said Geoff Burgan, the spokesman.

James’ personal attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, slammed the federal prosecutors.

“(It) has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president’s political retribution campaign,” Lowell said.

Trump repeatedly railed against James before, during and after the trial, calling her a Trump-hating Democratic stooge and a corrupt failed candidate for governor.

The president is appealing the $454 million judgment James won in the lawsuit, in which a judge found he defrauded banks by inflating the value of his properties, including his golf clubs and penthouse in Trump Tower.

Along with the Trump civil fraud case, a second subpoena to James’ office sought information related to her successful civil suit against the National Rifle Association, which focused on extravagant spending by Wayne LaPierre, the longtime head of the gun-rights group.

James asked for the dissolution of the NRA in that case, but a judge said the evidence did not back such an extreme punishment.

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