Like the fictional Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, New York Attorney General Letitia James had one overriding goal: to destroy the great white creature known as President Donald Trump. And like Ahab, she thought at one point she had succeeded. But if James had been better read, she might have known that she was going to destroy herself and her ship, while “Moby” Trump happily swam off into the sunset.
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Letitia James ran to become New York State’s attorney general on a single issue: she would destroy Donald Trump. Here is a compilation of statements James made on the campaign trail when she ran for attorney general in 2018:
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) ran her entire 2018 campaign on promising to take down Trump.
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 9, 2025
She called him an "illegitimate president," pledged to be a "pain in his ass," and said she was going to battle him "every day". pic.twitter.com/RXBeLd9bvF
For a while there, it seemed as if James had succeeded in catching her personal Moby Dick. Aided by a grossly erroneous low valuation of Mar-a-Lago from a hard-left judge with a dubious record, James was able to get a Manhattan jury to conclude that Trump, his sons, and his organizations had committed mortgage fraud—despite the fact that banks were begging for Trump’s business because he was such a good and honest customer.
The ultimate judgment would have cost Trump half a billion, but an appellate division later zeroed it out, although it shamefully retained the injunctive rulings barring Trump and two other defendants from leading companies in New York and imposing a monitor on Trump-owned business. I assume these will eventually be overruled, too.
What James might have paused to remember is that, despite seemingly spearing Moby Dick, things turned out badly for Captain Ahab. Tripped by a rope on his own ship, Ahab and the ship went down, while Moby Dick, that great white whale, lived on.
In James’s case, Trump is now the president of the United States. And, unlike Ahab, who was insane but not criminal, it may be that James is not only a monomaniacal nutcase but, if the allegations against her prove to be true, someone who engaged in the same crime she accused Trump of committing: namely, mortgage fraud.
You see, there are documents indicating that Letitia James misstated her purpose in buying a Virginia property—claiming it as a second residence, rather than a rental property—which enabled her to obtain favorable mortgage rates. Lying on a loan application is a felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
According to the indictment, James was a Brooklyn resident who obtained a Fannie Mae-backed mortgage for a property in Norfolk, Virginia. Under the loan, James promised that she would not rent or time-share the property; instead, she averred that it would be her second home. In fact, the indictment alleges, Jones, upon completing her purchase, immediately used the new house as a rental property.
The problem was that, by asserting that it would never be a rental property but would always be, instead, a second home, James obtained a better loan rate than if she had been honest about how she intended to use the Virginia property. And that, if proven, is criminal fraud.
Leftists, of course, are up in arms, claiming that this indictment is revenge. Well, yes, if “revenge” takes the form of justice. Only narcissists would contend that, when they do it, it is virtuous, but when it is done to them (whatever “it” is), it is a foul act of aggression. Leftists, of course, are all narcissists.
What will ultimately aid the prosecution’s case is that Letitia “Ahab” James helpfully wrote the perfect opening statement back in February 2024, when she thought she had caught Donald “Moby Dick” Trump in her net:
Hubris is real, and it’s absolutely lovely to see James caught in her own net.