James<\/a> as well as Comey.<\/p>\nJames on Thursday called the charges \u201cbaseless,\u201d adding they were \u201cnothing more than a continuation of the president\u2019s desperate weaponisation of our justice system\u201d. His \u201cown public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Her initial court appearance is set for October 24.<\/p>\n
The indictments against James and Comey mark an extraordinary step up in the Trump\u2019s attacks against his political enemies. They also intensify fears among the president\u2019s critics that he is using the DoJ as a vehicle for personal retaliation \u2014 accusations rejected by the justice department.<\/p>\n
The pair of cases comes after the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who was in charge of the investigations, resigned \u2014 and soon after Trump picked Lindsey Halligan, his former personal lawyer, to replace him.<\/p>\n
Neither indictment bore the signature of any career prosecutors at the US attorney\u2019s office and were signed only by Halligan.<\/p>\n
After James\u2019s indictment was filed, Bondi wrote in a post on X: \u201cOne tier of justice for all Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DoJ alleges James used a property in Virginia as a rental investment rather than a secondary residence, as required by the mortgage she used to finance its purchase.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis misrepresentation allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms not available for investment properties,\u201d according to the indictment.<\/p>\n
James in 2022 sued Trump, the Trump Organization, his three adult children and others in a landmark civil fraud case that led to a roughly $500mn penalty against the president. <\/p>\n
A New York court in August overturned the penalty for being excessive, but did not throw out the lower court\u2019s 2024 verdict that found Trump and other defendants, including his elder sons, liable for civil fraud. <\/p>\n
James at the time vowed to appeal against the ruling to New York\u2019s highest court. <\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Kaye Wiggins in New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-487038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115347133882913791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}