NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — In the summer of 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James helped her niece buy a modest house in Norfolk, Virginia, by becoming a co-borrower on the mortgage loan.
A top housing official in the Trump administration has now seized on a document in that transaction to argue that James should be prosecuted for bank fraud, asking the U.S. Justice Department in a letter to open a criminal investigation into the Democrat.
The request for an investigation comes as the administration has pursued a campaign of retribution against President Donald Trump's longtime foes in the legal world. James won a $454 million judgment against Trump last year in a lawsuit claiming he had lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks.
James called the allegations against her “baseless."
“It is nothing more than a headline, nothing more than retaliation against all the actions I have taken successfully against Donald Trump," she said Wednesday in an interview on the New York cable news station NY1.
In an April 14 letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for an investigation, U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte cited “media reports” claiming James had falsely listed a home in Virginia as her principal residence, which he hypothesized was an effort to avoid the higher interest rates people often pay for mortgages on second homes.
As evidence, Pulte cited a legal form James signed on Aug. 17, 2023, in which she gave her niece, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, the authority to sign documents on her behalf in connection with the sale two weeks later. Those forms are required when a person involved in buying a house can't be present for the closing.
That form included a line that says, “I hereby declare that I intend to occupy this property as my principal residence.”
“At the time of the 2023 Norfolk, VA property purchase and mortgage, Ms. James was the siting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York — even though her mortgage applications list her intent to have the Norfolk, VA property as her primary home,” Pulte wrote in the letter asking for an investigation.
James' office, however, shared a partial copy of a loan application in which she appeared to disclose that she didn’t intend to live in Virginia.
On the application, James was asked the question, “Will you occupy the property as your primary residence?” She checked the box that said “no."
“Donald Trump’s weaponization of the federal government continues to careen out of control – and now they are using cherry-picked information to attack the Attorney General,” her office said in a statement.
On another part of the loan application, James indicated she was applying for joint credit with Thompson-Hairston, who intended to use the home as her primary residence. That kind of arrangement isn't uncommon between family members, such as when parents help their children buy a starter home.
Real estate lawyers who spoke to The Associated Press said it was difficult to tell, based on the limited number of documents available publicly, whether anything improper had taken place or whether James had tried to deceive anyone about where she intended to live. One Virginia lawyer told the AP he had never seen a power-of-attorney form before that had a reference to a primary residence.
Bondi said Wednesday in an interview on Fox News that her office would review Pulte's letter.
Pulte also accused James of lying about the number of apartments in a New York City town house she has owned since 2001.
Pulte's letter cited a certificate of occupancy issued to a previous owner authorizing up to five living units in the Brooklyn building, where James lives and has rented apartments to some tenants. Multiple other city records indicate that the town house has four units.
James has indicated in building permit applications and in mortgage documents for years that the building has four units. Past news articles about the building have also referred to it as having four units.
Pulte speculated that James had misrepresented the number of units in order to qualify for federally backed mortgages offering interest rates unavailable to the owners of buildings with more than four units.
Experts in New York real estate said discrepancies about the number of units in a building aren't uncommon when property changes hands and typically only draw scrutiny from regulators when the change allows an owner to reap some improper advantage, such as skirting rent regulations.
“For regulatory and income-generating purposes, going from five units to four units doesn’t really help her,” said Andrew Scherer, a professor at New York Law School focused on housing law. “It seems highly unlikely that this kind of a difference would in and of itself be legally consequential.”
James' office said the building has four units and noted that the certificate of occupancy listing it as having five predated her ownership.
Beginning in July 2023, shortly before the start of Trump’s civil fraud trial, the city's Department of Buildings began receiving anonymous complaints claiming James had illegally misclassified the property.
“Why is she NOT being prosecuted for fraud and filling false documents when other people have been persecuted for far less crimes,” one complaint read.
Inspectors with the city’s Department of Buildings have found no violations. During their most recent visit on Wednesday, an inspection report determined the complaint was “unsubstantiated based on department records.”
Trump’s lawyers have appealed the judgment that James won against him. The president says he didn’t mislead anyone about the value of his properties.
Sisak and Offenhartz reported from New York.
FILE - New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a news conference outside Manhattan federal court in New York on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that NATO should help the U.S. acquire Greenland and anything less than having the island in U.S. hands is unacceptable, hours before Vice President JD Vance was to host Danish and Greenlandic officials for talks.
In a post on his social media site, Trump reiterated his argument that the U.S. “needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security.” He added that “NATO should be leading the way for us to get it” and that otherwise Russia or China would — “AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!”
“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” Trump wrote. “Anything less than that is unacceptable.”
Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, is at the center of a geopolitical storm as Trump insists he wants to own it — and residents of its capital, Nuuk, say it isn't for sale. The White House hasn't ruled out taking the Arctic island by force.
Vance, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is to meet Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt in Washington later Wednesday to discuss Greenland.
Along the narrow, snow-covered main street in Nuuk, international journalists and camera crews have been stopping passersby every few meters (feet) asking them for their thoughts on a crisis which Denmark’s prime minister has warned could potentially trigger the end of NATO.
Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told The Associated Press in Nuuk that she hoped American officials would get the message to “back off."
Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a news conference in Copenhagen on Tuesday that "if we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.”
Asked later Tuesday about Nielsen's comments, Trump replied: “I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. But, that’s going to be a big problem for him.”
Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.
This week, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that “we will continue to strengthen our military presence in Greenland" and underlined a consensus among NATO members that the alliance must take greater responsibility for security in the Arctic and North Atlantic.
Trump said in Wednesday's post that Greenland is “vital” to the United States' Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said he wants the island to expand America’s security and has cited what he says is the threat from Russian and Chinese ships as a reason to control it.
But both experts and Greenlanders question that claim.
“The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market,” heating engineer Lars Vintner said. He said he frequently goes sailing and hunting and has never seen Russian or Chinese ships.
His friend, Hans Nørgaard, agreed, adding “what has come out of the mouth of Donald Trump about all these ships is just fantasy.”
Denmark has said the U.S, which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. For that reason, “security is just a cover,” Vintner said, suggesting Trump actually wants to own the island to make money from its untapped natural resources.
Nørgaard said he filed a police complaint in Nuuk against Trump’s “aggressive” behavior because, he said, American officials are threatening the people of Greenland and NATO.
Mikaelsen, the student, said Greenlanders benefit from being part of Denmark, which provides free health care, education and payments during study, and “I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us."
Following the White House meeting, Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt, along with Denmark’s ambassador to the U.S., are due to meet with senators from the Arctic Caucus in the U.S. Congress.
Two lawmakers — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican — have introduced bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the use of U.S. Defense or State department funds to annex or take control of Greenland or the sovereign territory of any NATO member state without that ally’s consent or authorization from the North Atlantic Council.
A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers is also heading to Copenhagen later this week to meet Danish and Greenlandic officials.
Last week, Denmark’s major European allies joined Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in issuing a statement declaring that Greenland belongs to its people and that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL radio Wednesday that his country plans to open a consulate in Greenland Feb. 6, following a decision last summer to open the diplomatic outpost.
“Attacking another NATO member would make no sense; it would even be contrary to the interests of the United States. And I’m hearing more and more voices in the United States saying this,” Barrot said. “So this blackmail must obviously stop.”
Geir Moulson in Berlin, Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.
A fisherman carries a bucket onto his boat in the harbor of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boat travels at the sea inlet in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People walk near the church in Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A bird stands on a boat at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People walk along a street in downtown of Nuuk, Greenland, on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
