In the olden days of five months ago, the DOJ would announce an indictment when it happened, instead of first announcing their intention to send the FBI on a fishing expedition to find whatever evidence it can dredge up against specific targets.

Does it get any more selective-prosecution than this?

But for today’s authoritarians, the journey is the destination! If nothing else, they can squeal now that she’s “under investigation” in between all the racial slur words they like to use.

As you’ll recall, in 2022, James and her Office of the New York Attorney General busted Trump, Real Estate Guy, red-handed with mountains of evidence showing many years and a gazillion dollars worth of insurance and mortgage fraud, including balls-out moves like tripling the “square footage” of his own condo and fantasizing that it had an entire extra floor, and claiming his Florida roach motel was worth $18 million at tax time, but $739 million at loan time.

He and his fug sons were convicted of Liar Liar Pants on Fire, and he still owes the state of New York more than $500 million, and Uday and Qusay owe about $5 million each, and they were all barred from doing business in New York. Last March, the New York appellate division stayed those business bans and lowered his bond to $175 million, which he paid. In September his appeal was heard, and that decision is still sitting there pending.

But the fine is still on the books, and the interest is cha-chinging up by the day. So Trump is hoping he can do James like he did Fulton County DA Fani Willis: Find some way to discredit her and get her disqualified from his case, and make the whole thing go away on account of a Black lady was being deeply unfair to sweet innocent victim Donald Trump.

Trump and the family’s crypto-grift-ventures have made about $1 billion a month since he was inaugurated, doubling his net worth. So he could pay the money by selling some of his magic beans, but of course a Trump never pays his debts!

The mortgage-fraud accusation against James sounds like a paperwork error, if even that. In 2023, James helped her niece Shamice Thompson-Hairston with a down payment on a house in Norfolk, Virginia, and now US Housing Director William Pulte has alleged that he saw in “media reports” that James had claimed the house as her primary residence on mortgage documents, and he thinks she MAY have represented a dwelling she owns in Brooklyn as having four units instead of five, too. And also, Pulte heaves, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was convicted of misrepresentation on a mortgage document, so, therefore, ergo, QED, James probably did something wrong too; the “because they’re both Black lady prosecutors” is implied.

The complaint doesn’t say what media reports Pulte is referring to, but the page White Collar Fraud, run by Sam Antar, the former CFO of bankrupt electronics chain Crazy Eddie, dug around in James’s filings and credited itself with this “exclusive” in April, because James’s name appears on a land record sheet. Then Trump and Roger Stone picked up that report and ReTruthed and blah blahed about it.

According to James’s new lawyer Abbe Lowell, though, James specifically wrote the mortgage broker: “This property WILL NOT be my primary residence[.] It will be Shamice’s primary residence,” and the broker replied and acknowledged the “property will be occupied as a primary residence for Shamice” and noted that James’s declaration “is marked as a non-occupying co-borrower.” Not a very stealthy way for somebody to try to commit fraud! And days after Pulte wrote to Bondi, James’s office shared a partial copy of a loan application, where James was asked the question, “Will you occupy the property as your primary residence?” and checked the box that said “no.”

Doesn’t seem like this indicting could get very far, but who knows.

Abbe Lowell is her new lawyer, by the way, because James was previously represented by Paul Weiss, one of the law firms that struck a dirty deal to work for the administration for free. BOO.

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