Letitia James case may be Trump’s ‘one retribution’ for taking $500M ‘of his money’: Susie Wiles
WASHINGTON – According to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, President Trump could be looking for a form of “retribution” against his political adversaries, specifically in the case of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Wiles explained that the Department of Justice’s ongoing, yet still unsuccessful, investigation into James might be a response to the civil lawsuit she filed against the former president, which ultimately earned her a hefty $500,000 fine.
During a recent interview that appeared in Vanity Fair, Wiles clarified that Trump isn’t on a “retribution tour.” She said the former president’s guiding principle is that those who have acted wrongly should be removed from positions of power.
“People who do bad things need to be taken out of the government,” she noted. “In some situations it might look like retribution, and there might be an element of that from time to time. Who would blame him? Not me.”
She added that if Trump is pursuing this line of action, it’s specifically because James allegedly lied in order to secure a $109,600 loan for a second home, a claim that stemmed from a court case in which he was accused of misrepresenting the value of his real estate empire.
When asked whether the conversation about James’s potential mortgage‑fraud charges was part of this supposed retribution, Wiles admitted it could be. When pressed, she repeated—while chuckling—about the sheer scale of the civil fine: “She had a half a billion dollars of his money!” She later described the piece as “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.”
On October 9, Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan filed a two‑count indictment against James for bank fraud and false statements related to the 2020 loan. The mortgage’s terms, finalized on August 17, 2020, explicitly forbade the three‑bedroom, one‑bath house in Norfolk, Va., from being used as a rental investment, yet James listed it as such in her state ethics disclosures the following year.
Afterward, James’s grandniece, 36‑year‑old Nakia Thompson—a mother of three with a criminal record who is now wanted by North Carolina authorities—moved in. She denied paying rent to a federal grand jury earlier this year.
A federal judge ultimately dismissed the charges, ruling that Halligan had been unlawfully serving as interim prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia after her predecessor was ousted by Trump. Halligan had previously worked as the former president’s personal attorney on the classified‑documents case in south Florida.
Prosecutors tried twice to bring the mortgage‑fraud case before juries in Norfolk and Alexandria, Va., but both attempts failed. The indictment was dismissed without prejudice in November, leaving prosecutors six months to refile if they choose.
James has consistently dismissed the accusations as “baseless.” The potential penalties for a conviction on both counts – up to 60 years in prison and a $2 million fine – are severe. As of now, the DOJ hasn’t announced whether it will pursue another indictment or appeal the dismissal, though Attorney General Pam Bondi has indicated she will keep pursuing the matter.
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