Former GOP AG applauds ‘by the book’ approach in James fraud charges

Former Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron praised the prosecutor handling the indictment of Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James on corruption charges. Bank fraud And making false statements to a financial institution, celebrating that it was prosecuting the case “by the book” in a state that had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in two decades.

“Lindsey Halligan means business,” Cameron, who serves as CEO of the nonprofit 1792 Exchange, told Fox News Digital in a Tuesday interview on Zoom. “She has been charged with the responsibility of ensuring that no one is above the law in the Eastern District of Virginia. She certainly heeds that call, that commitment, and that responsibility for which I applaud.”

A Virginia grand jury indicted James on October 9, months after federal housing finance director Bill Bolte wrote in a criminal referral to the Justice Department last April that James had falsified mortgage records to obtain better loans.

Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, is the top federal prosecutor overseeing the case, having been nominated to the position by the President. Donald Trump In September. Halligan previously served as special assistant to the president and White House aide staff secretary in the administration’s early months before moving to her new position.

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Daniel Cameron, a former Republican attorney general in Kentucky, praised the prosecutor handling the indictment of Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Halligan also appeared on the political map while serving as one of Trump’s lawyers after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 looking for secret documents kept at Trump’s residence.

The Trump-nominated federal prosecutor, who was also appointed to the position on an interim basis, has since obtained separate indictments against James and the former FBI director. James ComeyBoth are longtime political enemies of Trump.

Cameron praised that Halligan was handling the cases “by the book,” noting how grand juries made up of local Virginians decided there was enough evidence to indict the couple in both cases.

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He added: “Whether it was this case or the Comey case, she was referring them to the grand jury.” “And I remind people that the grand jury process is a deliberative process. It appears that the community sitting on the grand jury is the one that ultimately makes the decision as to whether there is probable cause to move forward with indictment. This happened in both cases.”

Lindsey Halligan, special assistant to the then-president, speaks with a reporter outside the White House, Aug. 20, 2025, in Washington. (Jacqueline Martin/Associated Press)

Cameron, who is also running for Senate Kentucky In the 2026 cycle, he noted that Virginia is by no means a conservative-leaning state, with many of its residents working as employees in Washington, D.C. Virginia previously voted for a Republican presidential candidate 20 years ago in the 2004 race, and is in the midst of a high-stakes gubernatorial election.

“Virginia is not a stronghold of conservatism,” he said. “This is a jury or grand jury of peers that ultimately brings this indictment. And when you look at the facts alleged, they seem very cut and dry in the context of General James and what was misrepresented in the loan documents and whether it was a primary residence versus a rental property.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted on October 9, 2025 by a grand jury in Virginia. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

He continued, “I applaud Lindsey Halligan for taking this into consideration and, you know, putting the case before the grand jury that ultimately gave them the information necessary to make a ruling on the indictment.”

Cameron is the CEO of 1792 Exchange, a non-profit organization focused on providing information to businesses and other non-profit organizations and charitable groups to protect against “woke” corporations.

It also educates “Congress and stakeholder organizations on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policy risks, and to help guide U.S. public companies to neutrality on ideological issues so they can best serve shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity,” according to the group’s website.

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Cameron served as a Republican Attorney General Kentucky from 2020 to 2024, providing him with unique insight into James’ case as the state’s top prosecutor himself.

James was investigated for a home she purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020, which she identified in mortgage documents and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forms as a property that would serve as her primary residence. Federal officials claim the home was listed this way to secure better loans, while pointing to a state law that requires New York’s attorney general to reside in the Empire State.

Prosecutors in the case said James’ “ill-gotten gains” from the mortgage documents amounted to “approximately $18,933 over the term of the loan.”

President Donald Trump looks on during a meeting at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters on September 23, 2025 in New York City. (Chip Somodevila/Getty Images)

James has denied any wrongdoing, claiming any errors were not intended to deceive the lender, but were mistakes. Instead, she, as well as her Democratic allies, claimed that the indictment is an example of Trump “weaponizing” the Justice Department against his political opponents.

“I will not bend. I will not break. I will not bend,” James said earlier in October during a campaign rally for the socialist candidate for mayor of New York City. Zahran Mamdani. “You’re coming for me, you have to go through all of us. Every single one of us. We’re all in this together.”

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“I know what it feels like to be attacked just for doing your job,” James said, while rebuking those who “use justice as a weapon for political gain.”

Cameron noted that James’ office has prosecuted similar cases at the state level, which he said exposes the “hypocrisy” of claims that the case is a political weapon at the hands of the Trump administration. James’ office has previously litigated mortgage fraud-related cases related to money laundering, bond theft cases, and mortgage fraud schemes, a review of previous press releases issued by James’ office.

President Trump appointed attorney Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in September. (Marco Bello/AFP via Getty Images)

He added: “This is not weaponization.” “It’s about no one being above the law. And again, whether it’s the Department of Justice or individual U.S. attorneys across this country, there’s a responsibility to follow the law wherever it leads. And I appreciate the work that’s been done on that front.”

James herself also personally criticized “powerful people” who “cheat to get better loans” in 2024, when responding to a civil fraud ruling against Trump that year.

“When powerful people cheat to get better loans, it comes at the expense of hard-working people. It’s not every day Americans can lie to a bank to get a mortgage, and if they did, our government would blame them. There simply can’t be different rules for different people,” James wrote in a February 2024 post on X as she was attacking Trump on social media.

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James campaigned aggressively to pursue legal action against Trump during her successful 2018 run to serve as New York’s attorney general, and filed dozens of cases against his first administration, including more than 70 legal and regulatory actions in 2020 alone that specifically fought the administration’s environmental laws, according to James’ office in 2021.

“I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president,” James said in a video after her 2018 primary victory.

“We here in New York — me in particular — are not afraid of you,” she added of Trump after her statewide victory the same year. “As his state’s next Attorney General, I will shine a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, every interaction, and demand honesty at every turn.”

James has brought up a 2022 civil fraud case against Trump and the Trump Organization, accusing them of lying to lenders by inflating the values ​​of Trump’s properties. James won the case, but an appeals court overturned a massive $500 million judgment against Trump in August. Trump has criticized the case as a legal war, along with a host of other criminal and civil cases he faces ahead of the 2024 election.

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) news conference at Manhattan federal court on February 14, 2025 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago)

James faces up to 60 years, 30 years on each count, if found guilty, plus a $1 million fine on each count, and forfeiture, according to the Justice Department’s press release on the indictment, which noted that actual federal sentences are typically less severe than the maximum penalties.

Trump held a press conference with the FBI director Cash Battle and other federal law enforcement officials in the Oval Office on Wednesday, when Deputy U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche criticized any claims that the Justice Department has become “weaponized,” while speaking about a host of cases Trump has faced in the run-up to the November 2024 general election.

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“When people talk about weaponizing this department, it’s embarrassing because there’s no way you can look at what we’re doing in terms of restoring justice, doing the right thing on a case-by-case basis and saying this is weaponization, and yet we remain eerily silent about what’s happened over the last three years,” Blanche said.