A prosecutor inside New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) office has accused his own bosses of turning the state’s law-enforcement machinery into a political weapon to hunt President Trump and his associates.
In an agency-wide email sent Friday to hundreds of colleagues, Daniel Wiesenfeld said he had been instructed “to find and pursue crimes committed by specific individuals and organizations affiliated with Donald Trump.”
Wiesenfeld, a former Brooklyn prosecutor now assigned to the Investor Protection Bureau, compared James’ office to the thing she accuses Trump of doing.
He named his bureau chief, Shamiso Maswoswe, as the official who directed him to target Trump himself, Truth Social, and Hewlett-Packard — a company whose merger had already been approved by the Justice Department — “without having a credible reason.”
The Times Union obtained a copy of the message. According to the outlet, it was quickly deleted from state computer servers.
Prosecutor in NY AG Letitia James’ office says he was ordered to dig up dirt on Trump allies: report. Read today's cover here: https://t.co/CiptJNKkSO pic.twitter.com/dALSmM0H1X
— New York Post (@nypost) August 31, 2026
This is the exact opposite of how a legitimate prosecutor's office is supposed to operate. Investigators are supposed to start with evidence of a crime and follow it to a suspect, not start with a political enemy and then look for a statute that fits.
“If you believe Trump is using (Department of Justice) 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,” Wiesenfeld wrote, according to the Times Union, “I ask that you not serve as Tish’s personal attorneys by targeting her political enemies."
"Instead, I hope you choose to prosecute crimes and find the individuals accountable, rather than targeting individuals and then finding crimes.”
I stood on those courthouse steps every day and told you exactly what Letitia James was doing.
— Alina Habba (@AlinaHabba) August 30, 2026
She didn’t find a crime and follow the evidence. She picked President Trump and went shopping for one.
They called me a liar.
Now the truth is coming from inside her own office.
I… https://t.co/ahuAkbxkjf
Embedded tweet continues:
... told you so, Tish. The witch hunt just found its whistleblower.
Wiesenfeld also accused James of using “significant public taxpayer dollars to target convenient public enemies” while taking no action against “rampant nonprofit homeless shelter fraud and antisemitic crimes in and around synagogues.”
After the email was deleted from state servers, James' general counsel, Kumiki Gibson, sent a follow-up agency-wide email, according to multiple people who viewed the communication.
Gibson wrote that it was an “internal” matter and that no one in the office was “in danger."
“This is a personnel matter, and the employee in question has been placed on administrative leave with full pay,” Alexis Richards, a spokeswoman for James, said. “The office of the attorney general is committed to upholding New York’s laws and protecting the rights and freedoms of all New Yorkers, regardless of political beliefs."
"We strongly reject any assertion to the contrary.”
None of this comes as a surprise to those who have been paying attention. She told voters exactly what she planned to do.
“We will prosecute the president for crimes committed in New York state,” she declared in December of 2018.
She then spent years making good on it, culminating in the 2024 civil fraud case that produced a nine-figure judgment against Trump, his sons, and his company — a verdict an appeals court later upheld even as it wiped out the massive penalty.
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