(AFP) – New York’s top law officer Letitia James, charged with crimes by Donald Trump’s justice department, defiantly threw her weight Monday behind mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, another fierce critic of the US president. In her first comments in public since her indictment, New York state attorney general James, who successfully pursued Trump for fraudulently exaggerating his wealth, said she feared “no man” — a veiled reference to the 79-year-old Republican leader.
“I know what it feels like to be attacked for just doing your job,” she said at a rally in the Washington Heights district of Manhattan after giving a clenched fist salute to the cheering audience. “I will keep fighting the aggressive policies of Washington, DC, and I will not stop, I won’t give up, and I won’t give in. I fear no man.”
James, 66, a Democrat, was indicted by a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia on one count of bank fraud and a count of making false statements to a financial institution. She oversaw a case against Trump that saw him handed a $454 million civil penalty for exaggerating his wealth to gain more favorable terms on financial products, but the nearly half-billion-dollar fine was tossed on appeal while the court ruling against the president was upheld.
“Now is our time to fight for you,” 33-year-old Democratic socialist Mamdani said of James. “His authoritarian administration is waging a scorched earth campaign of retribution against any who dared oppose (him).”
The New York City mayoral election will take place on November 4 and the latest polls, conducted by Quinnipiac University between October 3 and 7, put Mamdani 13 points ahead of his closest rival, former governor Andrew Cuomo.
The charges against James were brought one day after another prominent Trump critic, former FBI director James Comey, pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The case against James concerns allegedly false statements she made to obtain favorable loan terms for a property she purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020.
A coalition of 22 attorneys general from states including California, Illinois, and Washington issued a joint statement Monday condemning the Trump administration’s “retaliatory prosecution” of James. “These kinds of prosecutorial abuses are the hallmarks of police states and authoritarian regimes — not America’s democracy,” it said.
Incumbent New York mayor Eric Adams has bowed out of the race.
© 2024 AFP
