ALBANY, New York — Former top officials in the state attorney general’s office believe that Thursday’s indictment of Letitia James should have minimal impact on the day-to-day work of the office she oversees.
In short, the expectation is that her legal actions against the federal government will continue and she will not have to recuse herself from any pending cases.
“Tish has been in office long enough to put together a really outstanding team,” said former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “And they will continue to run the office the way they’ve been running the office.”
New York’s attorney general oversees one of the country’s largest public legal offices. Particularly since Eliot Spitzer found ways to expand its reach a quarter century ago, it has regularly fought nationally significant courtroom battles.
In the second half of September alone, James was involved in legal action challenging the Department of Agriculture’s attempt to obtain personal information on SNAP beneficiaries, the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to no longer recognize greenhouse gases as harmful, a potential plan to ban abortion medicine and actions to rescind money from FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy.
The Department of Justice has now indicted James on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. But experts don’t expect her actions against the federal government to go away — or even for James to worry about having to recuse herself.
Suits against the feds are not “personal to Trump in any vein,” said Marty Mack, a top staffer under Spitzer and Schneiderman. “It’s all federal policy. And when you’re engaging in an issue of policy with the federal government, you’re engaging with the government, you’re not engaging with the president.”
Schneiderman notably resigned when his personal issues made it clear his ability to serve as a leader had vanished, both within the political realm and in his own office.
But none of that has been the case with the James indictment. New York Democrats have come to her defense and unanimously characterized the charges as an abuse of power by the Trump administration rather than a character concern. No lawyers who work for James have resigned in protest.
“The attorney general’s staff is one of the most professional places one can work,” said Mack. “I’m sure they all have full confidence and trust in Tish, so that won’t change either.”
The indictment will take up plenty of James’ time in the months ahead, though.
“When someone gets indicted, even though it may be regarded as political, it does divert your attention from doing other things,” said former Attorney General Oliver Koppell. “It doesn’t affect Letitia James’ power to act, [but] it does divert her attention from other affairs than her own concerns.”
Assemblymember Micah Lasher, the former chief of staff in Schneiderman’s office, agreed that an indictment “is something that anybody in the attorney general’s shoes would reasonably be modestly preoccupied by.”
“But I think she’s already been dealing with assaults from Trump and his minions for years now,” said Lasher. “So I would imagine that she and her team have developed a pretty strong capacity to compartmentalize.”
James would be forced to resign if she is eventually convicted of a felony charge. But that’s far from a guarantee. And there’s a chance her case might not even go to trial.
“There are provisions in law for motions to dismiss based on malicious prosecution,” said Schneiderman. “They’re very hard to proceed on because you have to get to what’s going on in the minds of the people behind the indictment. But the president has been just so careless about leaving a trail of cues that this has nothing to do about a legitimate indictment after an investigation and a sober weighing of the facts of the law.”
The attorney general's office said it remains focused on its work.
“Attorney General James has been relentlessly focused on protecting New Yorkers," said a James spokesperson. "In the last few months, she has secured hundreds of thousands of dollars for lead removal in Buffalo, defended NY’s gun laws, and had our largest fentanyl seizure to date.”
Former Rensselaer County District Attorney Joel Abelove has a unique view on the situation. Charges tied to his handling of a police shooting were pursued by three different attorneys general, including James, and the Republican is certainly no fan of hers: “She clearly has established a pattern of going after Republicans,” said Abelove, who was acquitted in 2020.
Yet he’s also an example of a prosecutor who carried on while under indictment.
“I had no problem running my office,” said Abelove. “It certainly brought more focus onto me and the office in a way that you don’t want to have happen when you’re in that position, knowing that I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I had absolutely no problem functioning.”
But he also noted the distractions for James might be a lot greater than those for a prosecutor from Rensselaer County.
“Her case has national exposure and so there are probably even greater pressures that are going to be placed on her given the providence of her position,” said Abelove. “She’s going to have to travel to Virginia to get arraigned. Every step of her case is going to garner huge media attention.”
Comments
Post a Comment