


Memo to state Attorney General Tish James: If you’re going to drag a former US president to court for misleading financial institutions, best not be accused of doing the exact same thing yourself.
James allegedly “falsified records” in 2023, per Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, to get a more favorable mortgage on a Virginia property she claimed as her “principal” residence even while residing in New York and serving as AG.
Pulte cited other potentially fraudulent James statements — misrepresenting her five-unit Brooklyn property as having just four units and claiming her father was her husband — in his criminal referral to the Justice Department.
The AG’s purchase of the Virginia property came right around the time she was launching a civil-fraud case against the Trump Organization for over-valuing many of its properties in documents to banks, a case where she won a $464 million judgment (pending appeals).
True, James granted a relative, Shamice Thompson-Hairston, her power of attorney to sign the document authorizing the purchase, White Collar Fraud reported.
But in her Trump case she held him (and his sons) responsible for documents similarly prepared by underlings.
She may complain this is dirty politics posing as a pursuit of justice, but then again she ran for attorney general promising to scour every Trump document and action in a fishing expedition to build some case — any case — against him.
So far, she hasn’t commented on these allegations; we look forward to her explaining the “principal residence” thing.
Back when James launched her probe of Trump in 2019, she famously huffed that “no one is above the law, not even the president.”
Surely, that goes for a state attorney general, too.