Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) responded with outrage on Friday evening to the news that President Donald Trump strong-armed his own hand-picked U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, into resigning — out of anger that Siebert couldn't muster the evidence to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James with mortgage fraud.
"Unbelievable," Warner posted to X. "Trump has now announced he is pushing out a U.S. Attorney because he refused to prosecute Trump’s political enemies."
"The message is clear: Trump will punish anyone who has the independence to challenge his baseless vendettas," he added.
James, who has launched multiple investigations into the Trump family and won a half-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment against them, is one of a number of Trump adversaries that the president's controversial Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, has accused of fraud by hunting through old real estate paperwork — in this case, claiming that she improperly classified a residence in Virginia as a primary home. James has denied any wrongdoing.
So far, none of the criminal complaints lodged by Pulte have resulted in actual charges against Trump's rivals, and Reuters cast serious doubt on the validity of his allegation against Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook.
Many legal experts are horrified by Trump's effort to oust a prosecutor in retaliation for not finding the evidence to bring a criminal case the administration wanted to bring against a political opponent, with some outright calling it an impeachable offense.
