New York Attorney Letitia James is facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice, according to a new report by the New York Times. The paper claims that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albany, New York has issued several subpoenas against the attorney general related to two of her previous investigations and civil cases; one against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, and the other against the National Rifle Association.
While Democrats are sure to howl that Trump is weaponizing the DOJ to go after his political enemies, that’s essentially what James is accused of doing… and there’s plenty of evidence that her targeting the NRA was motivated by politics instead of any specific and credible information she had about wrongdoing by NRA officials.
Two people familiar with the matter said the new subpoenas are part of a civil rights investigation of the state attorney general office’s work, to determine if the office violated Mr. Trump’s rights, or others.
Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have argued that his Justice Department should pursue cases against those who investigated or prosecuted him, and suggested one particular federal law would be grounds to do so.
That statute makes it a crime to use law-enforcement authority to deprive a person of rights. Historically, it has been used to investigate and prosecute police officers or prison guards who mistreat people based on their race, religion, sex, or national origin. The law, however, does not require that motive.
Mr. Trump has attacked Ms. James directly for years. In April, he called her a “crook” in a social media post in which he called for her resignation.
Though the New York Times report is short on details about the scope and substance of the subpoenas, if the DOJ is looking into whether James’ civil lawsuit was politically motivated they won’t have much trouble finding evidence of that. James vowed to go after the NRA as part of her campaign to become the state’s Attorney General, and filed suit against the organization in August, 2020 in the hopes of getting a judge to dissolve the NRA entirely.
Judge Joel Cohen took that option off the table, ruling that dissolving the entity would harm, rather than help, the NRA members James was supposedly defending. James then sought a court-appointed monitor to oversee the NRA’s day-to-day operations, which was also rejected by Cohen.
Instead, the judge ordered former NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and other NRA officials to repay millions of dollars they had improperly spent (and barring LaPierre from any role within the organization for a ten-year time period), while laying out specific internal reforms for the NRA to undertake; most, if not all, of which are already underway.
There’s no question that James’ crusade against the NRA was politically motivated and designed to crush the group out of existence. Unfortunately, James was also able to document some financial improprieties by NRA’s now former leadership. James’ investigation may have started as a witch hunt, but even so, it found a couple of witches.
Which makes me wonder: did anyone at NRA ask Trump to investigate James’ attack on the organization, or did the request (if any were made) come from Wayne LaPierre? The new leadership of the National Rifle Association seems intent on putting the lawsuit in the rearview mirror and focusing on rebuilding the organization… including regaining the substantial number of members who departed in the wake of the scandal. Asking the DOJ to reopen a can of worms the organization declared closed last December would be pretty odd, but I could see LaPierre making the request; not only to try to rehabilitate his image, but to see James herself squirm for her politically motivated investigation.
We’ll see how the USAO’s investigation turns out and what it uncovers, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t reveal the pure partisanship behind James’ attempt to dissolve the National Rifle Association and penalize leaders like Wayne LaPierre. Whether or not that will lead to any charges being filed against James remains to be seen, but at the very least we should get a peek behind the curtain at James’ behavior and motivation for her anti-NRA crusade.
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