Letitia James’ Lawyer Responds to the DOJ

New York AG Letitia James has hired attorney Abbe Lowell to respond to the allegations that she was involved in some sort of mortgage fraud on her various properties. If Lowell’s name is familiar it’s probably because he was Hunter Biden’s attorney last year. He has also worked for Sen. Bob Menendez, Jared Kushner, Gary Condit, John Edwards and others. Today, Lowell sent a letter to the DOJ countering the claims made in a criminal referral of AG James.

Abbe Lowell, a high-profile lawyer retained by the attorney general in recent days, was responding to a criminal referral letter sent to the Justice Department last week by Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Mr. Pulte’s letter focused on two houses that Ms. James owns in Virginia and New York. It said that she “appeared to have falsified records” related to the properties, which might have allowed her to receive favorable loan terms.

But Mr. Lowell, in his own letter to Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, said Mr. Pulte’s allegation lacked “any credible foundation.” He characterized them as “the next salvo in President Trump’s revenge tour against Attorney General James.”

The letter itself is heavy on framing this as retribution by President Trump and spends a page citing Trump’s critical comments about James:

In fact, Mr. Trump has singled out Attorney General James dating back to her campaign in 2018, and ever moreso during and after the trial and verdict in New York in which Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization were found liable for financial fraud and assessed a $454million judgment. For instance:

“How do I get a fair trial with a monster like ‘Attorney General ‘Peekaboo James, who is willing to break every law in the book? This is not a legitimate trial 

“…A bond of the size set by the Democrat Club-controlled Judge, in Corrupt, Racist Letitia James’ unlawful Witch Hunt, is unConstitutional,un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine.”

Eventually, Lowell does get around to the facts about the houses and mortgages which really ought to be the only issue here. As for the house in Virginia he says James wrote to the lender to let them know the house would not be her primary residence saying the document to the contrary was a mistake.

In 2023, Ms. James assisted her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, who needed financial support, with the down payment to purchase a home in Norfolk, Virginia. The mortgage application required only one individual to live at the property. Director Pulte cherry-picked an August 17, 2023 power of attorney that mistakenly stated the property to be Ms. James’ principal residence and at the same time absolutely ignored her very clear and all caps statement two weeks earlier to the mortgage loan broker that “[t]his property WILL NOT be my primary residence[.] It will be Shamice’s primary residence.” The broker understood this, and that Ms. James was not a Virginia resident, and replied, “Section 4 indicates that the property will be occupied as a primary residence for Shamice….Your declaration is marked as a non-occupying co-borrower.”

Furthermore, after the erroneous power of attorney (given to the person who would be the principal resident), Ms. James filled out a Uniform Residential Loan Application, including property “occupancy” information for the loan, in which she again made clear that the Norfolk property was not her “primary residence.”

The other issue raised in the referral letter involved a multi-family home in Brooklyn. The referral suggested that was a 5-unit property but Lowell says it has been a 4-unit dwelling for more than 20 years.

In 2001, Ms. James purchased her Brooklyn, New York home with her savings to facilitate supporting her mother (sick at the time) and give other family members a place to live. Ms. James and her family members have lived there since 2001. The co-occupancy dwelling has four floors and, for as long as Ms. James has lived there, the property has always functioned as a four-person residence. Initially, Ms. James’ mother lived on the first floor; Ms. James occupied the second floor; a close family friend occupied the third floor; and her brother occupied the fourth floor. The basement did not have any unit. After Ms. James’ mother died, and to this day, Ms. James has occupied the first and second floor units for her self, while her close family friend and brother occupy units on the top two floors.

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. In fact, a document he is well aware of, the August 23, 2011 Home Affordable Modification Program application, confirms it as being a four-unit property. Worse yet, Director Pulte ignores altogether the other New York City records that list the Brooklyn property as a four-unit property, including the NYC Department of Finance property record listing the Brooklyn property’s Building Class as “C3–Four Families” for tax purposes (e.g., 4 residential units).

Finally there was an issue involving an house in Queens in which James was listed as being married to her father. Lowell again claims this was a mistake, this one made without her knowledge.

In 1983, Ms. James’ father, Robert James sought to buy a home for his family in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York. He asked his daughter (then a few years out of school) to help by allowing him to add her name to the mortgage application. Mr. James filled out the mortgage material (wherein he described their relationship as being “spouses”) and purchased the home without his daughter’s involvement. Yet, in a predictable pattern here, Director Pulte cites a mistaken May 20, 1983 document Mr. James filled out to cast his baseless allegation while again ignoring the other supporting documentation, one on the same exact date that correctly describes Ms. James as being his daughter. The actual May 20, 1983 property deed for the Jamaica, Queens residence lists Robert James “and Letitia James, his daughter.”

So, in short, Letitia James has bought homes or helped buy homes for numerous people in her family and some of those mortgage applications contain mistakes which Lowell says were corrected. 

There are two sides to every story and James has offered hers now. We’ll have to wait and see if Pulte or others have anything else to add to this story.