(Chris Wade, The Center Square) President Donald Trump has tapped a new federal prosecutor in Virginia to go after New York Attorney General Letitia James over mortgage fraud allegations.
Trump announced Saturday that he will be nominating Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, as the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia. This move follows Friday’s resignation of Erik Siebert, who was allegedly pressured to file charges against the New York Democrat as part of a federal mortgage fraud investigation.
In a social media post announcing her nomination, Trump said Halligan will be “Fair, Smart, and will provide, desperately needed, JUSTICE FOR ALL!”
“Lindsey is a tough, smart, and loyal attorney, who has worked with me for a long time, including in the winning fight against the Weaponization of our Justice System by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, which she witnessed firsthand when she stood up for my rights during the Unconstitutional and UnAmerican raid on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Halligan is one of several attorneys who represented Trump after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago over allegations that he illegally kept classified documents in a storage room at the golf club resort. More recently, she spearheaded the White House’s effort to remove “anti-American ideology” from Smithsonian Institute’s museums in the U.S. Capitol.
Siebert resigned Friday following reports that he was pressured to file formal charges against James, a frequent Trump critic who has been accused by the administration of falsifying documents on a mortgage application to get more favorable terms. Conservative lawyer Mary “Maggie” Cleary was tapped as acting U.S. attorney for the Virginia prosecutors office.
In an email to his colleagues Friday, Siebert said he submitted his resignation but the president took to social media to dispute the claim: “He didn’t quit, I fired him!” Trump wrote. “Next time let him go in as a Democrat, not a Republican.”
James, who was first elected in 2018, has been a frequent critic of Trump and has filed several multistate lawsuits against the Trump administration over federal immigration policies, rollbacks in federal funding, and worker layoffs and other actions.
That includes a civil fraud trial that ended in a $454 million judgment against the Trump organization and several of its executives, which was recently overturned by a New York appeals court. James plans to appeal the decision.
In April, the Federal Housing Finance Agency sent a letter to the DOJ accusing James of committing fraud by listing a home in Virginia as her primary residence and identifying her father as her husband on federally backed mortgage loan applications to get a lower interest rate and more favorable terms.
James’ lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and blasted the Trump administration’s investigation as political retribution.
“Firing people until he finds someone who will bend the law to carry out his revenge has been the President’s pattern — and it’s illegal,” James’ attorney Abbe Lowell said in a Friday statement. “Punishing this prosecutor, a Trump appointee, for doing his job sends a clear and chilling message that anyone who dares uphold the law over politics will face the same fate.”
