FBI Opens Investigation of Letitia James

The Albany Times Union is reporting today, based on anonymous sources, that the FBI has opened an investigation into New York AG Letitia James’ real estate transactions.

The FBI in Albany has opened a formal criminal investigation examining the real estate and mortgage transactions of New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to law enforcement sources briefed on the matter…

“This is being handled at this time by main (Department of) Justice and the Albany FBI field office,” said U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III, who oversees the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Northern District. “We stand prepared to act in the capacity that we need to when and if we are informed there’s a charge to be made. Unlike Letitia James, who unethically ran around the state campaigning on getting Donald Trump… my office conducts itself in a manner that is proper and professional.”

Last month, James hired top tier attorney Abbe Lowell to defend her. Lowell has previously worked for Hunter Biden, Sen. Bob Menendez, Jared Kushner, Gary Condit, John Edwards and others. However, it appears James didn’t hire him directly, even though the allegations against her all involve her personal business dealings.

The attorney general’s office said that Lowell was hired by the attorney general’s office and not retained personally by James. They said that decision, in part, was based on their allegation that Trump’s administration is pushing the criminal referral in response to a civil case the attorney general’s office brought against Trump last year.

Apparently this also means James won’t be paying Lowell’s significant salary, the taxpayers will. Democrats added a Tish James legal slush fund to their most recent budget.

Albany Democrats are expected to sign off on a provision allowing certain officials to tap into a $10 million fund to cover “any reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred” — even as part of probes not directly related to their state employment.

The language is being slipped into New York’s operations budget bill — one of several expected to be made public and voted on starting Wednesday as the Legislature moves to pass next year’s fiscal plan.

Multiple sources told The Post that the specific language in the bill would apply to James’ looming legal fight.

New York Republican State Committee Chairman Ed Cox said of the fund, “This is what corruption looks like in plain sight: political insiders rigging the system to protect their own, while hardworking families get shortchanged.” James apparently owns 3 or 4 properties so I’m not sure why the taxpayers should be asked to cover her expenses.

I’ve written about Abbe Lowell’s responses to the allegations against James. Speaking about a house bought by her father when James was just 24-years-old, Lowell admitted that the loan application listed Letitia James as her father’s spouse but says other supporting documents correctly identified her as his daughter. But the Albany Times Union suggests the mistake should have been caught by James.

James, then 24 and a college graduate, signed the notarized mortgage, along with her father, on one of the document’s three pages that listed her as his “wife.” One of those references to her being her father’s “wife” was just below her signature. Lending experts consulted by the Times Union said that by listing themselves as husband and wife, the pair may have qualified for a loan — or received better borrowing terms — than had they not been considered a couple due to income requirements.

The NY Post published an image of the document. Here it is.

Then there’s the question of her multi-family dwelling in Queens. A document from 2001 listed it as a 5-unit complex but James repeated applied for loans only available to buildings with 4 or fewer units. Lowell claims the building has in fact always had 4 occupied units despite the earlier document. Here I wonder whether Lowell’s language isn’t a bit slippery.

Director Pulte points to a 24-year-old certificate of occupancy listing the property as having five units, despite that the property has functioned as a four-unit residence for the past 24 years since Ms. James bought it.

It “functioned” as a four-unit residence, apparently because she didn’t rent out the basement unit. But the Times Union notes it’s not clear whether someone can essentially declare a property has fewer units than it actually has because one of them isn’t being used.

Less than three weeks after that certificate was filed in January 2001, James purchased the property and obtained a $480,000 mortgage, which included an insurance rider that listed the property as having four units or less. 

It’s unclear whether, as the property owner, James had the ability to declare the residence would be four units instead of five for tax and financing purposes. That declaration was made by her in various documents, including building permits, mortgage applications and insurance riders filed over the past two decades. In some of those records, obtained by the Times Union, the property was also listed interchangeably as a one-, two- or three-family residence.

So this may not be as cut and dry as Letitia James wants us to believe. We’ll have to wait and see if the FBI decides there’s a case here that is still within the statue of limitations.

In the meantime, New Yorkers should not be on the hook for Letitia James’ legal defense. If she needs money she could always rent out that 5th unit in the basement.