President Donald Trump’s top housing official Bill Pulte issued two new criminal referrals for New York Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday, attempting to revive the administration’s ongoing legal pursuit of one of his political opponents.
According to a person familiar with the matter, Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, issued two referrals to the Justice Department, one to the US Attorney for Northern District of Illinois and another to the US Attorney for Southern District of Florida.
Both alleged “suspected homeowners insurance fraud.”
One referral alleges James “may have defrauded” an “Illinois-based company, Allstate” when she submitted a homeowners insurance application for her Norfolk, Virginia, property. The other alleges she may have done so on her homeowners insurance application to a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based company, Universal Property Insurance.
Both referrals cite posts on X by Mike Davis, a longtime Trump legal adviser.
A DOJ spokesperson told CNN, “The Department of Justice can confirm that referrals were received by our US Attorney Offices.”
An attorney for James, Abbe Lowell, accused the administration of continuing an “improper revenge campaign instead of helping bring down the rising cost of living in this country.”
“Frustrated by repeated failures, where judges and grand juries have rejected their attempts to charge Attorney General James, Trump and his political enablers keep abusing their power to pursue a vendetta against her by trying to rename, refile, and repeat baseless allegations,” Lowell said in a statement to CNN.
“They continue this improper revenge campaign instead of helping bring down the rising cost of living in this country. These desperate tactics will fail — just as every previous attempt has failed — and exposes an Administration that has abandoned its responsibility to the American people in favor of petty political payback.”
If federal prosecutors were to pursue a new set of charges based on Pulte’s recommendation now, the case may look substantially like the Trump Justice Department’s failed fraud case last year against James in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Pulte’s new referrals appear to be about the same house that was central to the Virginia-based federal case, to which James pleaded not guilty and a judge found wasn’t charged by a valid US Attorney. The new referrals, however, could potentially be investigated in another federal court district.
James was indicted in October 2025 on one count of making false statements to a financial institution and one count of bank fraud. She pleaded not guilty to the two charges, but the case was ultimately dismissed after the judge found that Trump’s appointment of interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan in Alexandria, Virginia, was invalid.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
