News chronological

AMERICANALMANAC (Alan Benson) - Prosecutor says Letitia James' office ordered him to dig up crimes on Trump — then deleted the evidence Wed Sep 2 20:36:32 2026

A whistleblower inside New York Attorney General Letitia James' office claims he was directed to "find and pursue crimes" against President Trump and Trump-linked entities without legal justification, and that the email exposing the directive was scrubbed from office servers. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld, a lawyer in the AG's Investor Protection Bureau, sent an […] The post Prosecutor says Letitia James' office ordered him to dig up crimes on Trump — then deleted the evidence appeared first on American Almanac .

A whistleblower inside New York Attorney General Letitia James' office claims he was directed to "find and pursue crimes" against President Trump and Trump-linked entities without legal justification, and that the email exposing the directive was scrubbed from office servers. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld, a lawyer in the AG's Investor Protection Bureau, sent an agency-wide email to roughly 2,000 colleagues alleging that his supervisor, Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe, instructed him to target Trump, Truth Social, and Hewlett Packard without providing a credible basis for investigation. Fox News Digital reported that the email was allegedly wiped from office servers shortly after it went out, and that James' general counsel, Kumiki Gibson, followed up with a separate message to staff calling the matter "internal" and assuring employees they were not "in danger." Wiesenfeld was placed on paid administrative leave after sending the email, according to the New York Post . James' office dismissed the entire episode as a personnel matter. Wiesenfeld drew a direct line between James and the conduct she condemns The whistleblower did not mince words. In his leaked email, Wiesenfeld framed the alleged directive as a mirror image of the very behavior Democrats accuse the Trump administration of carrying out through the Department of Justice. "If you believe Trump is using [DOJ] attorneys to prosecute his enemies and further his political interests, you should find it equally troubling that Tish [James] is doing exactly the same thing." That quote, first reported by the Times Union and confirmed in multiple outlets, strikes at the core contradiction. James built her political brand on holding Trump accountable. She campaigned openly on investigating his business practices before taking office, then launched a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and the Trump Organization in 2022. That case initially produced more than $450 million in penalties, though an appeals court later upheld Trump's liability while voiding the financial penalty. Now one of her own prosecutors says the office is doing exactly what it accuses the other side of doing: using government lawyers to chase political targets first and find legal justifications second. Federal investigators sat down with the whistleblower for hours The matter has not stayed inside Albany. The New York Post reported that Wiesenfeld met with federal prosecutors, including both criminal and civil attorneys from the FBI and DOJ, for "several hours" to discuss his claims. That level of engagement from federal investigators suggests the allegations are being treated as more than an internal staffing dispute, regardless of how James' office characterizes them. The White House weighed in directly. Spokesperson Lauren Bis issued a statement to Fox News Digital: "This is more proof of the weaponization of the justice system by Letitia James to target President Trump and her political opponents. The far-left Democrats lawfare against President Trump, his family, and allies must stop." James' office offered a terse response, calling the situation a "personnel matter" and insisting the office "is committed to upholding New York's laws and protecting the rights and freedoms of all New Yorkers, regardless of political beliefs." The statement added: "We strongly reject any assertion to the contrary." That boilerplate does not address the substance of Wiesenfeld's allegations. It does not explain why the email was removed from servers. It does not explain why a general counsel had to reassure staff they were not "in danger." And it does not explain what, if anything, Maswoswe actually directed Wiesenfeld to do. Maswoswe's own history with the DOJ raises questions The supervisor at the center of the allegations, Shamiso Maswoswe, carries her own complicated history with the federal government. She served as a trial attorney in the DOJ's Public Integrity Section beginning in January 2016 and was terminated in December 2017, during Trump's first term. In February 2021, Maswoswe filed a discrimination lawsuit against the DOJ, alleging she was unfairly fired and subjected to discrimination based on her race, she is of Zimbabwean descent, as well as her pregnancy and caregiving responsibilities. She sought reinstatement, back pay, and damages. The case settled in 2023. The DOJ paid Maswoswe $795,000 to resolve all claims related to her employment and the lawsuit. But the department expressly denied that her claims were true. The settlement agreement characterized the payment as "a compromise of disputed claims, not an admission that discrimination or retaliation occurred." Maswoswe joined James' office in February 2022, roughly a year after filing her discrimination suit against the DOJ and the same year James launched her civil fraud case against Trump. She rose to lead the Investor Protection Bureau, the same unit where Wiesenfeld worked. None of this proves that Maswoswe's alleged directive to Wiesenfeld was motivated by personal grievance against the Trump administration. But the timeline is worth laying out plainly: a DOJ attorney fired during Trump's first term, who sued the department and collected nearly $800,000, landed in James' office and allegedly told a subordinate to go find crimes committed by Trump and his allies. An email deleted, a whistleblower sidelined, and no answers Several critical questions remain unanswered. No one has explained who ordered the email wiped from office servers, or how that decision was made. Just The News reported that the message was removed from thousands of employees' inboxes, an unusual step for what the AG's office insists is merely a personnel matter. Maswoswe has not publicly responded to Wiesenfeld's allegations. Gibson, James' general counsel, has not commented beyond the internal email telling staff the situation was under control. James herself has not addressed the claims directly. Washington Examiner columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher framed the episode as part of a broader pattern of Democratic resistance politics that has outlived its political usefulness. As she put it : "It'll be 2032, and they'll still be doing orange man bad just so they don't need to address the elephant in the room." The specific crimes Wiesenfeld was allegedly told to pursue have not been disclosed. The legal basis, or lack of one, for targeting Truth Social and Hewlett Packard remains unexplained. Wiesenfeld noted parenthetically that the Hewlett Packard merger in question had already received DOJ approval, raising the question of what exactly the AG's office expected to find. What the public record shows so far is this: a prosecutor inside the New York Attorney General's office says he was told to go after the president and his business interests without a legitimate legal predicate. He told his colleagues. The email disappeared. He was put on leave. And the office that talks constantly about accountability has offered nothing but a form letter about personnel matters. If the standard for "weaponization" is using government attorneys to target political opponents first and build a case second, then the accusation coming from inside James' own office ought to be the hardest one for her to dismiss. The post Prosecutor says Letitia James' office ordered him to dig up crimes on Trump — then deleted the evidence appeared first on American Almanac .