The indictment of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, marks a stunning escalation of the conflict between the Empire State’s top law enforcement official and President Trump.

Ms. James was indicted on one count of bank fraud and another of making a false statement. The charges are related to a mortgage loan she received for a modest, Norfolk, Virginia home. 

The leveling of criminal charges  comes after a months-long criminal investigation by the Department of Justice into whether Ms. James committed mortgage fraud. The allegation that she did came first from the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, an heir to the Pulte Homes dynasty.  

Mr. Pulte’s referral was in turn picked up by the DOJ. The attorney general, Pam Bondi, appointed the erstwhile interim United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, as Special United States Attorney for Mortgage Fraud to spearhead the probe into Ms. James and another individual Republicans accused of anti-Trump and anti-MAGA “lawfare,” Senator Adam Schiff of California, who faces similar accusations revolving around a Maryland family home and a Burbank apartment on the opposite coast. 

The prosecution of Ms. James will be led by the interim United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan. Ms. Halligan is also responsible for the prosecution of the former director of the FBI, James Comey, for lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. She is a former personal attorney for Mr. Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and was most recently involved in purging the Smithsonian of racially charged language and exhibits.

The case falls to the Virginia office because Ms. James is accused of listing the Norfolk property as her primary residence, despite being legally obligated to live in New York as an elected New York official. She is also accused of describing her father as her husband on mortgage documents and of underlisting the number of units in a Brooklyn brownstone she owns.

Ms. James’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has denounced the investigation into his client’s real estate dealings. He calls the accusations “threadbare” and “cherry-picked.” In order to convict Ms. James, the government will be required to prove that she had a mens rea, or “guilty mind,” aimed at committing fraud. ABC News reported that Ms. Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, did not believe the government ought to charge Ms. James. He was forced to resign by Mr. Trump, who cited Mr. Siebert’s strong support from Virginia’s two Democratic senators as the reason.

Mr. Lowell has provided to the public one document where Ms. James appears to represent that the Norfolk “property WILL NOT be my primary residence.” He admits, though, that his client “mistakenly” filled out some other documents. For a jury to convict Ms James, the jury will have to be convinced of her guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”   

Ms. James’s legal jeopardy comes a year after she secured a staggering $500 million civil fraud verdict —  involving, ironically, corporate mortgage fraud — against Mr. Trump, his two adult sons, and their family business. The presiding New York state judge, Arthur Engoron, found that Mr. Trump’s frauds “shocked the conscience” and “leapt off the page.” Ms. James, an elected Democrat, ran for office in 2018 vowing to “shine a bright light” into every corner of Mr. Trump’s real estate empire.

That verdict, though, was overturned by New York’s intermediate appellate court, which found it so disproportionate as to violate the Constitution’s prohibition on “excessive fines.” The court, though, kept intact the underlying verdict as well as a raft of other punitive measures aimed at the Trump Organization. Both Mr. Trump and Ms. James have appealed to New York’s highest court.

Ms. James is under a separate DOJ investigation that is probing whether that case violated Mr. Trump’s civil rights. Subpoenas have already been issued, and that inquiry – reportedly being conducted by an Albany, New York grand jury – could result in a criminal or civil case. Mr. Trump, in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal election interference prosecution, was charged with “deprivation of rights.” That case was dismissed when Mr. Trump won reelection.