President Donald Trump's hand-picked U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia is resigning under growing fury from Trump's inner circle at his inability to prosecute one of the president's most hated political adversaries, reported CNN on Friday evening.
"US Attorney Erik Siebert told his staff Friday he will be stepping down, according to a person familiar with the matter, after facing intense pressure from President Donald Trump to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James with mortgage fraud," reported Kristen Holmes, Casey Gannon, Adam Cancryn, Evan Perez. "It’s not clear when his resignation will take effect."
Reports earlier this week indicated Trump was moving to remove Siebert from his position. He confirmed it on Friday, telling reporters, “Yeah, I want him out, yeah.” He added that it was also a red flag for him that Virginia's two Democratic senators approved him, as is a common requirement under Senate "blue slip" traditions: “When I learned that they voted for him, I said, I don’t really want him.”
James, who has repeatedly investigated Trump and his associates in New York and won a massive half-billion-dollar judgment for civil fraud against the president's family business, is one of a number of Trump adversaries accused of mortgage fraud by his controversial director of the Federal Housing and Finance Agency, Bill Pulte.
James has denied this allegation and said she did not mislead any financial or tax institution about her use of properties she owns.
Another person Pulte recently accused of illegally claiming multiple primary residences on mortgage documents is Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor who resisted Trump's demands to cut interest rates. A recent investigation by Reuters casts doubt on the allegation, finding that she disclosed to her credit union that one of the properties was to be a vacation home.
