The mortgage fraud investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James is at a standstill because federal agents and prosecutors don’t believe they have enough evidence to get a conviction if the case were to go to trial, two senior federal law enforcement officials told NBC News on Wednesday.
The White House and several top administration officials, however, have continued to push the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia to seek an indictment against James, who brought a civil fraud case against Donald Trump after his first term as president.
ABC News first reported he developments in James' case.
A grand jury has been hearing evidence, but so far prosecutors have declined to seek an indictment.
One of those senior officials said “there’s not nearly enough clear and convincing evidence” to show that James knowingly made false statements to a financial institution to get a better mortgage rate for her Virginia home.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia declined to comment.
Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent a criminal referral letter to the Justice Department in April alleging that James “appears to have falsified records in order to meet certain lending requirements and receive favorable loan terms.”
The letter referred to three properties: James’ home in Virginia and two in New York.
The allegations center on a document related to the Virginia home James purchased in 2023, which she and her attorney says incorrectly showed that the property would be her primary residence. They say that was a mistake and that it’s the only document related to the purchase of the home that indicated the primary residence designation; the rest of the loan documents accurately say the home wouldn’t be James’ primary residence.
Pulte and the former acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, who now leads the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, are leading the charge to have James indicted.
In an April 24 letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, James’ attorney Abbe Lowell described the criminal referral as “three pages of stale, threadbare allegations with no reason to proceed other than they are ‘based on media reports’ and are the next salvo in President Trump’s revenge tour against Attorney General James.”
Martin sent Lowell a letter last month urging James to resign as attorney general, saying she “would best serve the 'good of the state and nation' by resigning from office to address the issues in the referral."
