The Detail That Could Blow Up Trump DOJ’s Entire Letitia James Case

The MAGA-led legal effort to punish New York Attorney General Letitia James has another glaring hole.

The fragile mortgage fraud indictment against James accuses her of lying about her financial situation in order to get a better loan rate when she purchased a home in Virginia in 2023. Prosecutors’ main gotcha accuses James of violating that loan agreement by renting the property out.

Except she actually was allowed to rent it out, according to legal and real estate experts that spoke Wednesday with Politico, which noted that “the key language in the contract expressly allows renting under certain conditions.”

James is charged with two counts of financial fraud in connection to the Norfolk home. She pleaded not guilty Friday to the federal charges.

The case has been fraught from the beginning: The last attorney tasked with leading the legal effort against James was given the boot in September after his team was unable to find incriminating evidence that she had knowingly committed fraud.

New York’s top cop has become one of Donald Trump’s chief legal adversaries since she bested him in his bank fraud case in 2024. Trump’s revenge began to take form in April, when his administration launched an investigation into James’s personal finances, accusing her of lying on her bank statements in order to obtain better mortgage rates.

At the time, Trump referred to her as a “totally corrupt politician,” a “wacky crook,” and accused James—the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York—of being “racist.”

James has since been a star against Trump’s political retribution tour, as she has repeatedly promised to hold him to account, regardless of his presidential status. Since Trump returned to the White House in January, James has filed dozens of lawsuits against his administration. They range from legal rejections of Trump’s tariffs to fighting his “big, beautiful” budget’s attempt to strip Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics.

It looks like President Donald Trump forgot about Armenia … again.

Speaking at a CEO lunch Tuesday night during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, Trump touted his efforts as a peacemaker, but didn’t appear to remember whom he’d actually brokered peace deals with.

“We saved millions and millions of lives with all of them. Azerbaijan … if you look at, if you look at.... Just take a look at that one. That was going on for, I think, 38 years,” Trump said.

“The two countries came in, and they were in the White House and they started off here, and they got closer and closer and closer,” Trump said, holding his fists out, before inching them back together.

“After an hour they were hugging each other and peace—it was amazing actually, it was beautiful to see,” he added.

This is at least the fourth time the 79-year-old has appeared to forget Armenia’s name.

During a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, Trump repeatedly confused Armenia and Albania when speaking about the peace deal, and was subsequently mocked by world leaders. He had already made the same mistake while speaking on Fox News just a week before, and a conservative radio show the previous month.

The president also claimed Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin, the local autocrat who had been involved in prior ceasefire agreements, had lauded Trump’s efforts in ending the conflict.

You should take the Trump administration’s most recent immigration numbers with a grain of salt. 

On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had deported more than 527,000 people as of Monday, and an additional 1.6 million people had voluntarily self-deported. DHS declared it was a “record-breaking” statistic.   

“This is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jumpstarted an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” a statement from DHS read. “In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE and CBP, have not just closed the border, but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country.”

But this number is unverifiable, and almost certainly inaccurate, given that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not updated its arrest statistics since January. 

“Has DHS ‘deported’ or ‘removed’ 527,000 ‘illegal aliens’? No. Definitely not. How do we know this, even though DHS has STOPPED publishing the underlying data which would let us verify it (see below)?” wrote Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “There are two main sources of removals/deportations: those carried out by @ICEgov and those carried out by @CBP (usually Border Patrol). As of 8/28/25, ICE had recorded just under 200,000 deportations. By the end of October, that figure is probably closer to 260,000.” 

As Reichlin-Melnick noted, DHS is likely claiming the much higher figure of 527,000  by including people who were turned away at ports of entry for paperwork and visa issues—which is not a deportation. An estimated 147,961 people were turned away in this manner from February to September. 

“The 527,000 figure (which again CANNOT be verified since DHS stopped publishing granular data) is likely only about 50-60% actual ‘deportations,’ not all of which are of ‘illegal aliens,’ and the rest is mostly people with VISAS turned away at ports of entry,” Reichlin-Melnick concluded. 

This posturing from the Trump administration comes as DHS plans to replace multiple ICE agents with Border Patrol agents in an effort to crack down even more brutally in its deportation campaign. Its aggression, desperation, and lack of transparency is what produces violence, not the immigrants it’s going after indiscriminately. 

The Trump administration can’t fire federal workers while the government is shut down, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Tuesday afternoon. 

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s ruling grants a preliminary injunction preventing firings while a lawsuit challenging their legality continues, and indefinitely extends an earlier temporary restraining order that would have expired Wednesday. Labor unions representing federal workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees, have sued to block President Trump’s mass layoffs, calling them an abuse of power. 

Illston’s ruling does not bode well for the White House. The judge, appointed by President Clinton, has said she believes the evidence will demonstrate the illegality of the mass firings. In hearings earlier this month, Illson said that layoff notices sent out by the government on October 10 appeared to be politically motivated and ill thought out. 

So far, about 4,100 layoff notices have gone out to federal employees, some arriving in inboxes that workers aren’t legally allowed to check. Meanwhile, the government shutdown is entering its fifth week, with House Speaker Mike Johnson refusing to bring Congress back into session and SNAP benefits set to expire within days. 

Democrats are refusing to vote on a funding bill that leaves out extending health care subsidies, a sticking point from which Republicans are refusing to budge. Republicans are not offering a health care plan of their own, either. Federal workers may have a momentary reprieve, but the shutdown is still continuing with no new developments.  

This story has been updated.

Nearly two dozen states are suing the Trump administration for failing to salvage SNAP benefits amid the ongoing government shutdown.

Approximately 42 million Americans—about one in eight people—who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program stand to go hungry after November 1, when benefits are scheduled to expire.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads a message explicitly blaming Democrats on the Department of Agriculture’s website.

Two options remain to save the critical welfare program: a quick (if unlikely and, apparently, politically undesirable) resolution to the gridlock in Congress or a chunk of change to keep the program chugging along until the next month.

A coalition of 23 attorneys general and three governors are fighting for the latter. They argue that the USDA not only has the funds to continue feeding Americans via SNAP through the month of November, it also has “both the authority and legal duty” to do so.

“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: For the first time ever, SNAP benefits will not be available to the millions of low-income individuals who depend on them to put food on the table,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of four attorneys general co-leading the lawsuit. “With the holidays around the corner, we are seeing costs for groceries continue to increase and food banks facing unprecedented demand. We are taking a stand because families will experience hunger and malnutrition if the Trump Administration gets its way.”

The agency held roughly $6 billion in contingency funds as of September 30, according to a USDA Lapse of Funding Plan that acknowledged Congress’s intent to keep SNAP benefits fully operational through the government shutdown. Days later, USDA officials directed states to put an indefinite hold on the rollout of November benefits as the federal branch researched the potential reality of distributing its emergency funds.

When states demanded an answer following weeks of silence, the USDA announced that it would be suspending SNAP benefits indefinitely. In a separate memo, USDA officials reversed course on their Lapse of Funding Plan, claiming that they actually were not authorized to use the $6 billion contingency fund to provide SNAP benefits, lest the agency need the cash to tackle a major natural disaster such as a hurricane or a tornado.

The government has been shut down for more than 27 days as of Tuesday, making it the second-longest federal closure in U.S. history. It’s only bested by a 35-day shutdown between 2018 and 2019 that occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.