What to Make of Trump’s Revenge Play Against Letitia James

Trumpers are relishing the administration’s attack on New York Attorney General Letitia James, who last year won a civil fraud case against the president for what his fans considered normal business practices.

Is turnabout fair play? Or is this, to use one of Donald Trump’s favorite phrases, a political witch hunt?

There’s no doubt that James, who has clashed repeatedly with Trump over the years, is being targeted as retribution. The allegations against her are so picayune that even the right-wing media declined to cover them until James became the subject of a criminal referral by Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte.

One of her four alleged wrongs — marking on a mortgage application that a house she and her niece bought in Virginia would be a primary residence — is probably not what Pulte had in mind when he called for Americans to report potential mortgage fraud.

James says her niece lives in the house, which is why they bought it. If true, it’s hard to imagine that case going anywhere. But the attorney general’s other real estate transactions are also under the microscope.

Another flagged by Pulte is too old to amount to anything: James was listed as her father’s wife on some documents for their 1983 purchase of a Queens house. That “could have enabled them to receive financing terms that would only be available to a married couple,” the Albany Times Union reported.

With the proceeds from the sale of that home, James in 2001 bought a Brooklyn row house. She rented out three units of the building and lived in a fourth.

A few aspects of the Fort Greene property, at 296 Lafayette Avenue, could be problematic for James.

First, she repeatedly reported that it has four units, although Department of Buildings records list it as a five-unit building, which would subject it to higher mortgage and insurance costs. The difference would be thousands of dollars, but not tens of thousands, which is why no media outlets published anything when an anonymous James detractor mailed them paperwork documenting the discrepancy.

The Albany Times Union reported that the detractor used a fictitious name and claimed he was part of a group that delved into James’ property records “because they were upset their friend had committed suicide while he was under investigation by the attorney general’s office for mortgage fraud.”

It only became newsworthy when the Trump administration sought to make a federal case out of it. Trump fans have been excitedly circulating memes and social media posts about it, reminiscent of their “lock her up” chants about Hillary Clinton. The outcome is likely to be similar: Clinton was neither charged nor locked up.

James, meanwhile, has characterized Pulte’s action as a “revenge tour” and accused the administration of weaponizing the federal government.

Another issue, however, is whether the Brooklyn property should have been rent-stabilized since before it was purchased by James, who has never reported it to the state as such. If tenants brought a case that resulted in retroactive rent-stabilized status, James could be compelled to reimburse them for 24 years’ worth of overcharges.

New York attorney Noah Levenson, whose practice focuses on landlord-tenant litigation and rent stabilization, posted on LinkedIn that from 1936 until 1981, 296 Lafayette was a legal seven-unit building. On June 5, 1981, a new certificate of occupancy reduced the unit count to five.

The website of the state agency that oversees rent regulation lists the building as not historically rent-regulated. Buildings containing six or more units and built before 1974, however, are rent-stabilized, even if the unit count is later reduced, Levenson wrote.

“This looks like a classic example in the rent law world of a ‘fraudulent scheme to deregulate’ where a unit should be subject to the rent stabilization law, but the owner conceals its status as stabilized,” Levenson asserted. “Multifamily owners have been vilified for evading the rent laws, but according to the public records, AG James, as a landlord, appears to be evading the rent laws herself.”

James herself has come down on landlords for not adhering to the state’s rent-stabilization laws.

But her current or past tenants, not the Trump administration, would have to bring such a case. And even if they did, Levenson might be presuming too much about what the outcome would be.

It is possible, for example, that the number of units was reduced as part of a substantial rehabilitation, exempting the property from rent stabilization, according to a LinkedIn post by another real estate attorney, Sherwin Belkin, who is known for representing owners.

“It’s important to get all the facts before assumptions are made,” he wrote. “Even Landlord James is entitled to due process.”