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Former Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron applauded the prosecutor handling Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James’ indictment on charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, celebrating that she is prosecuting the case “by the book” in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate in two decades.
“Lindsey Halligan means business,” Cameron, who serves as CEO of nonprofit the 1792 Exchange, told Fox News Digital in a Tuesday Zoom interview. “And she has been tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that no one is above the law in the Eastern District of Virginia. And she certainly is heeding that call and commitment and that responsibility, which I applaud.”
A grand jury in Virginia indicted James Oct. 9, months after Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte wrote in a criminal referral to the Department of Justice in April that James allegedly falsified mortgage records to obtain more favorable loans.
Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan is the top federal prosecutor overseeing the case, following her nomination to the role by President Donald Trump in September. Halligan previously served as special assistant to the president and White House senior associate staff secretary in the early months of the administration before moving to her new role.
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Halligan also landed on the political map while serving as one of Trump’s attorneys after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 in search of classified documents retained at the Trump residence.
The Trump-nominated federal prosecutor, who also was appointed to the job on an interm basis, has since secured separate indictments against James and former FBI Director James Comey, both of whom are longtime political foes of Trump’s.
Cameron applauded that Halligan was handling the cases “by the book,” pointing to how grand juries comprised of Virginia locals determined there was enough evidence to charge the pair in both cases.
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“Whether it’s this case or the Comey case, she has been taking them to the grand jury,” he said. “And I remind people that the grand jury process is a deliberative process. It appears within the community that sit on that grand jury to ultimately make a decision about whether there’s probable cause to move forward with an indictment. And that has happened in both of these instances.”
Cameron, who also is running for the Senate in Kentucky in the 2026 cycle, 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 hotbed for conservatism,” he said. “This is a jury or grand jury of peers that ultimately makes this indictment. And when you look at the facts that are alleged, it seems pretty cut and dry in the context of General James and what was misrepresented on the loan documents and whether it was a primary residence versus a rental property.”
“I applaud Lindsey Halligan for taking this by the book and, you know putting forth the case before the grand jury that ultimately gave them the information to make a judgment about indictment,” he continued.
Cameron is the CEO of the 1792 Exchange, which is a nonprofit focused on providing information to businesses, other nonprofits and philanthropy groups to shield against “woke” corporations.
It also educates “Congress and stakeholder organizations about the dangers of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies, and to help steer public companies in the United States back to neutral on ideological issues so they can best serve their shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity,” according to the group’s website.
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Cameron served as the Republican attorney general of Kentucky from 2020 to 2024, providing him unique insight on the James case as a top state prosecutor himself.
James came under investigation over a Norfolk, Virginia, home she purchased in 2020, which she identified on mortgage documents and a Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac form as a property that would serve as her primary residence. Federal officials claim that the home was listed as such to secure more favorable loans, while pointing to state law that requires the New York attorney general to reside in the Empire State.
Prosecutors of the case said James’ “ill-gotten gains” from the mortgage documents sit at “approximately $18,933 over the life of the loan.”
James has denied wrongdoing, claiming that any errors were not intended to deceive a lender, but were mistakes. She, as well as Democrat allies, have instead claimed the indictment is an example of Trump “weaponizing” the Justice Department against political foes.
“I will not bow. I will not break. I will not bend,” James said earlier in October during a campaign stop for socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. “You come for me, you’ve got to come 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 for just doing your job,” James said, while reprimanding those who “weaponize justice for political gain.”
Cameron noted that James’ office has prosecuted similar cases at the state level, which he said exposes the “hypocrisy” of claims the case is political weaponization at the hands of the Trump administration. James’ office previously has prosecuted cases involving mortgage fraud entwined with money laundering, deed theft cases, and mortgage fraud schemes, a review of previous press releases from James’ office show.
“This is not weaponization,” he said. “This is about no one being above the law. And again, whether it’s the Department of Justice or the individual U.S. attorneys across this country, there’s a responsibility to follow the law wherever it may lead. And I appreciate the work that’s been done on that front.”
James, herself, also personally railed against “powerful people” who “cheat to get better loans” in 2024, when reacting to the civil fraud verdict against Trump that year.
“When powerful people cheat to get better loans, it comes at the expense of hardworking people. Everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. There simply cannot be different rules for different people,” James wrote in a February 2024 post on X when she was attacking Trump on social media.
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James campaigned on aggressively pursing legal action against Trump during her successful 2018 run to serve as New York attorney general, and brought forth dozens of cases against his first administration, including more than 70 legal and regulatory actions in 2020 alone that specifically combated 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 primary win in 2018.
“We here in New York — and I, in particular — we are not scared of you,” she added of Trump after her statewide win that same year, the New York Times reported. “And as the next attorney general of his home state, I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing, demanding truthfulness at every turn.”
James did bring forth the 2022 civil fraud case against Trump and the Trump Organization, accusing them of lying to lenders by inflating the values of Trump properties. James won the case, but the appeals court threw out a massive $500 million judgment against Trump in August. Trump slammed the case as lawfare, alongside a bevy of other criminal and civil cases he faced ahead of the 2024 election.
James faces up to 60 years, 30 years per count, if found guilty, as well as a $1 million fine on each count, and forfeiture, according to the Department of Justice’s press release on the indictment, which noted actual federal sentences are typically less severe than the maximum penalties.
Trump held a press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel and other federal law enforcement officials at the Oval Office Wednesday, when United States Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche slammed any claims the Department of Justice has become “weaponized,” while rattling off the bevy of cases Trump faced in the lead-up to the general election in November 2024.
“When people talk about this department weaponizing, it’s embarrassing because there’s no in which you can look at what we’re doing restoring justice, doing the right thing and every single case and say that that’s weaponization, and yet remain eerily silent about what happened for the past three years,” Blanche said.
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