Prevailing over former President Donald J. Trump and the National Rifle Association makes an elected Democrat a lightning rod. Foes call her vindictive. Allies say she’s just doing her job.
Letitia James has needled those she vanquished on social media, angering opponents. Doug Mills/The New York Times
By Jesse McKinley March 10, 2024
This has been a very good year for Letitia James.
Over the past month, Ms. James, New York’s attorney general, has racked up hard-fought victories over two formidable opponents. First, in mid-February .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/nyregion/trump-civil-fraud-trial-ruling.html , her office won a staggering $454 million judgment against former President Donald J. Trump in a civil fraud trial stemming from accusations that he had inflated his net worth.
A week later, Ms. James, a Democrat, prevailed again, this time against the National Rifle Association and its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, who was found personally liable for more than $5 million in misused funds .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/nyregion/nra-money-wayne-lapierre.html .
“It took a prosecutor with the mettle to get under the hood,” Nick Suplina, the senior vice president for law and policy with Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-violence prevention group, said of the N.R.A. case. “And that’s what Attorney General James did.”
The dual victories against figures viewed as villains by her fellow Democrats has, in some quarters, made Ms. James a hero, complete with the kind of résumé-burnishing accomplishments that can presage an ascent to the governor’s mansion or national office. Ms. James, who won a second term handily in 2022 .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-new-york-attorney-general.html , is seemingly reveling in her reputation as an antagonist of right-wing political figures, some of whom have reacted to her public pronouncements with fury.
Delaney Kempner, a spokeswoman for Ms. James, said Saturday that the attorney general had been elected “to take on the biggest threats to our state and to protect its people, and she has done exactly that.”
Ms. James is not the first in her position to celebrate big wins, including predecessors like Eliot Spitzer, known as the Sheriff of Wall Street, and Eric T. Schneiderman, who took on Mr. Trump .. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/us/politics/trump-university.html .. over the former president’s namesake university.
Federal prosecutors, too, often make sweeping, accusatory statements about defendants before trial. Rudolph W. Giuliani, New York City’s former Republican mayor, was known for his showy briefings .. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/09/magazine/high-profile-prosecutor.html .. on criminal cases when he was the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.
She has also been blunt about the possibility of seizing some of Mr. Trump’s properties in New York City if he does not pay, including a towering 1930 Art Deco skyscraper that bears his name and is just a short walk from her office, saying she looks “at 40 Wall Street each and every day.”
Ms. James has said she is eyeing 40 Wall Street, one of Donald J. Trump’s prize jewels. Ahmed Gaber for The New York Times
Her attitude about her win over the N.R.A. was equally punchy.
Such comments won laughs and plaudits from Mr. Trump’s opponents, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and Senate majority leader. He called Ms. James “a fighter” who “inevitably wins.”
On the flip side, her remarks have infuriated the former president’s supporters.
She was booed and met with “Trump!” chants at a New York Fire Department event on Thursday, behavior that John J. Hodgens, the chief of department, later called an “embarrassment.” After the verdict against Mr. Trump, envelopes containing white powder were sent .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/nyregion/judge-engoron-powder-trump.html .. to the Albany building that houses Ms. James’s office.
“Tish James has the dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance,” said Mike Davis, the founder of the Article III Project .. https://article3project.org/ , a group that helped push Mr. Trump’s judicial appointments when he was president. “You can have one or the other. You can’t have both.”
Mr. Davis, who also works as an outside lawyer for Representative Elise Stefanik, an upstate Republican, said he believed that Ms. James had “corrupted the whole case with unnecessary prejudicial statements” that could give Mr. Trump an avenue for appeal.
Mr. Trump sued Ms. James on such grounds .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/nyregion/trump-lawsuit-letitia-james.html .. in 2021 to stop her inquiries into his business, but a federal judge dismissed that case, rejecting Mr. Trump’s claim that Ms. James’s investigation was politically motivated. Justice Engoron also rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that the fraud case was political, saying in a 2022 decision that the motivation was “not personal animus, not racial or ethnic or other discrimination, not campaign promises.”
“It does not meet the standards of attorneys in New York State, let alone the attorney general,” Ms. Stefanik said.
Ellen C. Yaroshefsky, a professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University, dismissed the idea that Ms. James’s statements could have tainted the case against Mr. Trump, noting that it had been decided not by a jury but rather a single judge unlikely to be swayed.
“This is weaponizing ethics rules for political grandstanding,” Professor Yaroshefsky said of Ms. Stefanik’s complaint, adding, “It’s just not a credible claim.”
As the first Black person and first woman to be elected as New York’s attorney general, Ms. James has also sometimes been the target of racially charged comments: Indeed, Mr. Trump, who has often found political foils in women of color, has used a nickname for her that is reminiscent of a racial slur.
Ms. Kempner, the attorney general’s spokeswoman, said: “Blaming politics for your own misconduct is the oldest — and thinnest — trick in the book, and it’s a paltry defense when you’re up against the facts and the law.”
Ms. James’s supporters say that her own posts regarding the interest owed by Mr. Trump are not taunting but simply true. They also point out that her successes have also included hard-hitting investigations of other Democrats, including former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned after a 2021 inquiry by the attorney general’s office into sexual harassment allegations. Mr. Cuomo has denied the accusations.
Emergency workers came to Ms. James’s office in Lower Manhattan after the discovery of suspicious powder there. Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
Ms. James’s national profile has been years in the making. A Brooklyn native, she began her career as a public defender for the Legal Aid Society, which represents indigent clients. She was elected as New York City’s public advocate in 2013 after 10 years on the City Council.
“The expectation is that you’re not going after someone for political reasons, that you’re following the evidence and the law, that you’re making decisions based on the facts and not based on bias,” he said.
But, Professor Green added, most state attorneys general are elected to office. “And if you’re an elected candidate,” he said, “you need to be able to run for office and make the kinds of arguments that, as a candidate, help get you elected.”
“She’s got a high profile, she’s respected,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat who is the deputy majority leader in the Legislature’s upper chamber and his party’s chief political strategist there. “There’s a lot of checks in the plus column.”
Mr. Suplina of Everytown for Gun Safety said he deeply appreciated Ms. James’s taking on the N.R.A., which he said had “been this seeming invincible political juggernaut for years.”
Such unstinting praise would cheer any politician, and Ms. James has been demonstrating her high spirits. On Valentine’s Day, she posted a bit of doggerel online that included a stern message.
“Roses are red and violets are blue,” it read. “No one is above the law, even when you think the rules don’t apply to you.”
Jesse McKinley is a Metro correspondent for The Times, with an emphasis on coverage of upstate New York. He previously served as bureau chief in Albany and San Francisco, as well as stints as a feature writer, theater columnist and Broadway reporter for the Culture desk. More about Jesse McKinley
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