Trump to fire his own appointee for refusing to indict president's perceived enemy: report
A U.S. attorney who was appointed to his position by Donald Trump in May will be out of a job by Friday because he refused to file an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud, according to a new report.
According to a late Thursday report from ABC News, the U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, could find no evidence against James and has refused, despite pressure from the White House, to bring charges, which will now cost him his job.
The New York AG has reportedly been targeted for successfully prosecuting Trump for criminal fraud.
James, along with Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, both of them Black women, have been accused of making deceptive statements when applying for mortgages, some say as a way to force them from their jobs, and like Cook there is reportedly no evidence of criminality.
That hasn’t stopped the Trump White House from keeping on, ABC News reports.
“Trump administration officials have argued that James committed mortgage fraud because one of the documents related to her 2023 home purchase, they say, falsely indicated the property would be her primary residence. The investigation began after Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent the DOJ a criminal referral about James in April,” the report notes before adding, “Federal prosecutors in Virginia had uncovered no clear evidence to prove that James had knowingly committed mortgage fraud.”
The firing of Siebert is creating alarm because the Eastern District of Virginia is considered one of the most important offices in the country “which handles a bulk of the country's espionage and terrorism cases.”
The report adds, “Sources familiar with the matter said that the administration now plans to install a U.S. attorney who would more aggressively investigate James.”
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