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A veteran federal prosecutor in Virginia has told her colleagues that she finds no basis there is legal grounds to pursue fraudulent mortgage charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, per a source acquainted with the situation.

The prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, who manages high-profile investigations in the Norfolk office for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, intends to imminently present her conclusion to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally who was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia recently.

The Justice Department offered no statement on the matter. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia also did not return a request for comment.

Significant Dispute Between DOJ and Former President

This case marks another notable confrontation between the Justice Department and Trump, who has in the past removed attorneys who resisted to prosecute his critics. Halligan, who lacks any prosecutorial experience, was appointed to the role at the urging of Trump after her former office holder concluded there was no legal basis to file criminal charges against James Comey, the previous FBI director.

Trump has explicitly demanded the U.S. Attorney General to charge James, who led a civil fraud case against the former president that resulted in a massive fine, though the judgment was subsequently overturned by a New York state appellate court.

Mortgage Fraud Allegations and Inquiry

William Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency head and a dedicated Trump ally, made a legal complaint against James to the Justice Department in April, claiming she may have committed mortgage fraud. Pulte pointed to mortgage documents associated with a 2023 Norfolk, Virginia, home that James helped purchase for her niece, in which James suggested on a document that she intended to use the home as her primary residence. James was acting as the Attorney General of New York at the time.

Prosecutors convened a grand jury in May to look into the matter but struggled building a case against James, even with pressure from Trump allies. Electronic correspondence from the time of the home purchase and additional mortgage documents demonstrate James directly noting that she did not intend for the home to be her primary residence. This evidence poses a challenge for prosecutors to prove that James deliberately falsified on the mortgage documents.

Recent Shake-Up in Legal Unit

Multiple prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have either been fired or left their posts in recent weeks as Trump has ramped up pressure on the office to bring charges against Comey and James.

Erik Siebert, Halligan’s predecessor, resigned on September 19 after encountering pressure from Trump to file charges. Maya Song, a top deputy to Siebert, was also fired in late September. Michael Ben’Ary, a top national security prosecutor in the office, was removed last week after unfounded accusations from a pro-Trump media personality.

“The leadership is more concerned with penalizing the President’s political foes than they are with protecting our national security,” he stated in his final message to colleagues.

“Justice for Americans affected by our enemies should not be subject to what someone in the Department of Justice encounters in their social media feed that day.”