The American lawyer who has not billed to the resignation of Trump’s opponent under pressure from the administration

A federal prosecutor in Virginia, including the survey of mortgage fraud for a month of month on the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, did not lead to criminal charges on Friday under pressure from the Trump administration.
Erik Siebert confirmed his departure in an email to colleagues, examined by the Associated Press, in which he praised them as the “most beautiful and the most exceptional” of the employees of the Ministry of Justice, but did not mention the political disorders which preceded his resignation.
The replacement of Siebert as an American prosecutor for the prestigious office of the East district of Virginia intervenes in the middle of a push of officials of the Trump administration to instill James, a perceived opponent of the president who continued him successfully for fraud. President Donald Trump told journalists from the oval office on Friday that he wanted Siebert “out” and that several people familiar with the issue later declared the AP that Siebert had informed his colleagues of his plan to resign from the post.
The effort of the administration to avoid it from the post represents a new erosion of standards intended to isolate the Ministry of Justice of the influence of the White House on prosecution decisions. This decision is likely to deepen the concerns that the Department – already investigating other public figures, Trump, enemies – is under armament by a white house seeking to make its powers of prosecution for remuneration purposes.
Friday afternoon, he was not immediately clear who would replace Siebert, who was appointed by Trump at the first job of the office this year after working there for more than a decade. Siebert’s best deputy, Maya Song, also leaves her post as an American assistant lawyer and will work as a line prosecutor, said one of the familiar people with the case.
The spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice refused to comment.
Trump administration officials pursued allegations against James resulting from alleged paperwork of paperwork in his townhouse in Brooklyn and a house in Virginia. The Ministry of Justice has spent months investigating, but has not yet brought their accusations, and nothing indicates that prosecutors have succeeded in discovering an incriminating degree of evidence which could support the contribution of an indictment.
Asked about the problem in the White House on Friday, Trump, without mentioning any evidence, said: “It seems to me that she was really guilty of something, but I really don’t know.” Trump also said he was disturbed that Siebert was supported by the two state Democratic senators.
James’ lawyers vigorously denied any allegation and characterized the investigation as an act of political revenge.
ABC News was the first to point out that Trump administration officials were pressure on prosecutors to bring accusations and that the republican administration was preparing to oust Siebert.
James has long been a particular source of indignation for Trump, partly because of a trial she brought against him and his company which led to a massive financial sentence last year. This sanction was rejected last month by a court of appeal which narrowly confirmed the conclusion of a judge that Trump had fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades.
The case took a series of unorthodox turns. It appeared last month that Ed Martin, who heads the Armament Working Group of the Ministry of Justice and helps coordinate the investigation, had sent an exhorting letter James to resign from the “Act of good faith” function after starting her investigation into mortgage fraud. Later, he appeared in front of the Brooklyn town house in James in a “Columbo” trench coat. A writer from the New York Post on the scene observed him saying to a neighbor: “I just look at houses, interesting houses. It is an important house.”
James’ lawyer Abbe Lowell told Martin in a letter that the request for resignation from James had challenged the standards of the Ministry of Justice and the codes of professional responsibility and legal ethics.
The Ministry of Justice “has firm policies against the use of surveys and against the use of the power of prosecution to obtain political ends,” wrote Lowell. “This is more and more the case when this request is made to take revenge for a civil servant in the opposite party.”
Former police officer of the Columbia district, Siebert joined the East district of Virginia, a prosecution office of the Ministry of Elite Justice with a history of sophisticated national security and criminal affairs, in 2010. He was appointed to the post of American lawyer by Trump this year with the support of the two state democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
The office participated separately in the investigation into the questions related to the old years survey of the potential links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign in 2016, a long -standing grievance of the president. No accusation has been announced as part of this work.
Although American lawyers are appointed presidential, they are rarely dismissed. But the Trump administration has repeatedly ignored the standards and traditions intended to protect prosecutors from the Ministry of Justice against the political influence of the White House.
Prosecutors and other support staff who worked in the Jack Smith special advice team who investigated and prosecuted Trump were dismissed, just like Maurene Comey, federal prosecutor in New York, whose father, former FBI director James Comey, was dismissed by Trump months in his first mandate in the middle of the entrance to the Elections of Russia.
Martin’s investigation follows from a letter that the director of the Federal Housing Financing Agency William Pulte sent to the Attorney General Pam Bondi in April asking him to investigate and consider continuing James, alleging that she had “falsified banking documents and property files”.
Pulte, whose agency regulates mortgage financiers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cited “media reports” saying that James had falsely listed a house in Virginia as the main residence, and he suggested that she may have tried to avoid higher interest rates that often apply to secondary residences.
The files show that James was listed as a co-object of a house that his niece bought in 2023. Lowell said that files and correspondence easily refuted the allegation of Pulte. While James signed a power form of Attorne, Lowell said: “Writeful that the property was the main residence of Ms. James”, she sent an email to her mortgage loan broker at the same time which clearly indicated that the property “will not be my main residence”.
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