Letitia James finally becomes a ham sandwich

In 1983, 25-year-old Letitia James signed a mortgage application with her father and listed him as her husband. The reason was obvious: this qualified her for better loan terms.

When she was caught years later, she claimed it was simply a clerical error. Oops! Didn’t realize my dad wasn’t my husband as we sat next to each other and signed form after form claiming we were married.

That explanation strains credibility, but hey, we could give the benefit of the doubt to an inexperienced youngster.

Fast-forward two decades. Letitia James had become a lawyer and was running for city council.

She decided to buy a five unit brownstone in Brooklyn. But since four-unit buildings qualify for lower mortgage rates than five unit buildings (due to local and federal regulations), she listed stated that her five unit brownstone was, in fact, only four units.

Oops. Another clerical error. Odd how these honest mistakes always seem to financially benefit Letitia James.

Fast forward to the 2020s. By then, Ms. James had become the elected Attorney General of New York, and she decided to buy a home in Virginia. She claimed this home would be a second residence.

This allowed her to secure another owner-occupied mortgage—with lower interest rates, reduced down payment requirements, and more favorable terms.

Those weren’t obscure details buried in fine print. James had to actively check boxes on multiple forms and sign legal affidavits explicitly asserting, under penalty of perjury, that she would personally occupy the Virginia property.

But she didn’t occupy it. She didn’t even travel to Virginia to see it. She rented it out almost immediately.

For someone who’s not just a card-carrying attorney, but the senior prosecutor in the state of New York, you’d think she’d recognize that signing false statements isn’t an “error”—it’s a crime.

Yet upon being indicted yesterday, Letitia James claimed the accusations are “baseless.”

Baseless? There’s a pretty substantial amount of evidence, including multiple emails from her calling the Virginia house a “rental property” and “investment opportunity”, not to mention mountains of paperwork with her signature.

Perhaps, she might argue, something changed at the last minute. Maybe, immediately after closing on the Virginia property, she suddenly realized—oh wait, I’m the Attorney General of New York and won’t actually be living in Virginia anytime soon since my term doesn’t expire until 2027.

And, maybe that’s when she decided to rent it out. Right after closing.

A responsible person—especially someone with a legal obligation to enforce the law—would have immediately notified the bank of the mistake.

But Letitia James did no such thing. So that defense argument is completely invalid.

So would be any claim that she was ignorant of the law. Remember that, just as Letitia James was signing these documents, she was preparing for a high-profile prosecution of Donald Trump… also for bank fraud. Clearly she would have been intimately familiar with the laws.

Another incredibly lame defense her team has floated is that the amount involved is supposedly “immaterial”— just $18,933 in benefit from the lower interest rate and lower closing costs.

But what does that have to do with anything? She lied under penalty of perjury for personal financial gain. The quantum of benefit should be completely irrelevant, especially given that she committed this fraud while serving as Attorney General of New York.

If you steal a stick of gum while holding that position, you should see jail time. Public officials should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.

I believe I’ve heard a certain phrase before: “No one is above the law.”

Funny, I don’t recall the footnote that read: “*as long as the crime is less than $19,000.”

And of course, that key figure Letitia James said over and over again was not above the law was Donald Trump.

Which brings us to the final, incredibly rich, defense: that these charges are politically motivated.

Yes, of course this is politically motivated.

But it turns out, that’s not a valid defense either.

The Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Goodwin that even if a prosecution is allegedly motivated by bad intent, it doesn’t matter—what matters is whether there’s actual evidence of a crime. If the charges are supported by facts, the prosecutor’s motive is legally irrelevant.

So it shouldn’t matter that this is politically motivated retribution for the politically motivated charges that Letitia James filed against Donald Trump a few years ago.

Coincidentally this sense of balance is what justice is all about. Even the word justice comes from the Latin iustitia, meaning “fairness”. Or another word that the Left loves to use: “equity”.

This is actually an ancient principle, dating back to the Code of Hammurabi— “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. Multiple books in the Old Testament— Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy— also deal with this concept of equity.

In short, when someone commits a wrong, justice demands retribution to restore balance.

Yet, for years, the Left has been holding its thumb down on the scales of justice. And it wasn’t just lawfare against Trump.

The former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler, once quipped that he “could indict a ham sandwich”, referencing how easy it is for the government to go after someone.

Well that’s exactly what the Left did for the past several years.

They canceled people off the Internet and got them fired for wrongthink. They debanked the ideologically impure. They brought the full weight of government against anyone who posed a political or cultural threat.

Letitia James campaigned and won her public office by promising to find a reason— any reason— to prosecute a single individual.

Now, after abusing her office and authority for so long, Ms. James becomes the proverbial ham sandwich. Yet today’s case against her isn’t a fabrication; the evidence is clear and substantial.

Naturally the Left whines that her prosecution is a “travesty of justice” and an “affront to the Constitution”.

But if they actually care about justice in its true, literal sense, then the only travesty would be letting her off the hook. Justice is balance… and given the mountain of evidence against her, this is definitely balance.

Source

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur and permanent traveler. His daily letter is both educational and entertaining, and we suggest that those who want unbiased, actionable information about global opportunities sign up for Sovereign Man’s free, actionable newsletter at http://www.SovereignMan.com.

From Simon Black of SovereignMan.com

Source: https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/letitia-james-finally-becomes-a-ham-sandwich-153691/