(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) New York Attorney General Letitia James, the ringleader in former President Donald Trump’s $465+ billion civil trial, may be guilty of far more egregious financial crimes than those for which she waged her lawfare attack on the GOP leader.
James recently announced that she planned to seize Trump’s properties if he fails to promptly pay the fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron—despite the fact that the one-time Manhattan real-estate mogul plans to appeal the outrageous verdict.
Yet, while the case against Trump centered on claims that he had exaggerated the value of his assets on loan applications, James herself has been accused of leveraging campaign funds from “ghost donors” to finance her lavish lifestyle.
What do I mean? Well, in 2023 alone, James spent over $28,500 on hotels. Over $15,000 of that was spent on luxury hotels in Puerto Rico. pic.twitter.com/MSG9RThmNj
— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) February 27, 2024
In a lengthy Twitter thread, “Mel,” a North Carolina-based independent journalist using the handle @Villgecrazylady, dug into James’s past campaign finances, noting in particular that the New York AG spent nearly $30,000 on hotels in 2023 alone—the year after she successfully ran for reelection.
Moreover, approximately half of that money was spent staying at luxury resorts in Puerto Rico, far from James’s jurisdiction.
Other expenditures were traced back to Massachusetts’s Martha’s Vineyard—a favorite vacation getaway for wealthy elites, due to its dearth of illegal immigrants.
But her luxury spending did not end there. James has also spent $84,000 flying herself all over the country in the five years she has been the state’s AG. That has reportedly included the use of private jets on occasion.
With all of that travel and time at luxury resorts, James naturally had to partake in only the finest of dining, dropping $20,000 per year on meals from her campaign funds.
That, however, did not include $7,000 in 2022 for a Memorial Day trip to the Ascent lounge—a New York City nightclub overlooking Columbus Circle, which James listed on her expenditures simply as “Office.”
Meanwhile, James’s $300,000 in a single year to a campaign-consultancy firm run out of a two-bedroom apartment might have looked suspiciously like money-laundering to some.
“[To be certain], I’m not accusing Ms. James of breaking the law w her expenditures,” tweeted Mel. “But considering the high bar she set for Trump in his civil fraud case, I find it more than a little galling that she plays so fast and loose w what she deems to be ‘legitimate campaign expenses.'”
As shocking as how James spent her campaign donations, however, was how she obtained them.
A large part of her funding came from apparent “ghost donors”—that is, individuals from out of state who inexplicably send thousands of dollars across hundreds of small donations to major left-wing think tanks and politicians.
By using ghost donors, individuals and organizations can conceal the real sources of their cash, and thus hide those who provision their lavish lifestyles.
Sites like ActBlue have previously come under scrutiny over allegations that they stole the identities of some—oftentimes senior citizens—who may have donated sporadically.
Leftist crowdfunding aggregators then used the patsy donors without their knowledge to funnel funds from other sources, such as certain well-heeled billionaires whose support might cast a pall of impropriety on politically motivated investigations.
BREAKING: O’Keefe Media Group Uncovers Potential MASSIVE Money Laundering into Political Campaigns #FollowTheMoneypic.twitter.com/MiNS63G2rI
— O’Keefe Media Group (@OKeefeMedia) March 29, 2023
James would be in good company among a list of other powerful African–American women who have recently been investigated for mishandling their finances.
“Squad” members Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., were both accused of ethics violations for using campaign funds to pay out their respective husbands under suspicious circumstances.
Most recently, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has faced the possibility that her own lawfare attack on Trump after the revelations of her jet-setting with former lover Nathan Wade raised a litany of concerns including possible perjury, tax fraud and abuse of office.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
