President Donald Trump is expected to fire the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after his office was unable to find incriminating evidence of mortgage fraud against New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to sources.
Federal prosecutors in Virginia had uncovered no clear evidence to prove that James had knowingly committed mortgage fraud when she purchased a home in the state in 2023, ABC News first reported earlier this week, but Trump officials pushed U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert to nevertheless bring criminal charges against her, according to sources.
Administration officials have told Siebert of Trump’s intention to fire him, sources familiar with the matter said. Siebert’s last day on the job is expected to be Friday.
The decision to fire Siebert could throw into crisis one of the most prominent U.S. attorney’s offices, which handles a bulk of the country’s espionage and terrorism cases, and heighten concerns about Trump’s alleged use of the DOJ to target his political adversaries.
Trump nominated Siebert for the position in May. Sources familiar with the matter said that the administration now plans to install a U.S. attorney who would more aggressively investigate James.
The move to fire Siebert because he refused to charge one of Trump’s political rivals would mark an escalation in what the president’s critics have called a retribution campaign, with ongoing investigations also targeting Sen. Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
Trump has repeatedly accused James — who successfully brought a civil fraud case against him last year and leads multiple lawsuits challenging his administration’s policies — of targeting him for political reasons, calling her “biased and corrupt.”
Attorney General Letitia James sits in the courtroom during the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump at New York Supreme Court, Jan. 11, 2024, in New York.
Seth Wenig/Pool/Getty Images
James is “a horror show who ran on the basis that she was going to get Trump before she even knew anything about me,” Trump said during his civil fraud trial in 2023. “This has to do with election interference, plain and simple. We have a corrupt attorney general in this state.”
Following a three-month trial, a New York judge concluded that Trump and his family had committed a decade of business fraud by overstating the value of their properties to get favorable loan terms, fining Trump and his sons nearly half a billion dollars. An appeals court subsequently tossed the financial penalty but upheld the finding that Trump committed fraud.
Trump administration officials have argued that James committed mortgage fraud because one of the documents related to her 2023 home purchase, they say, falsely indicated the property would be her primary residence. The investigation began after Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent the DOJ a criminal referral about James in April.
“I believe this is riddled with mortgage fraud, and frankly, I think that’s why she knew so much about the law in terms of how to go after President Trump,” Pulte told Fox News last month. “She was the fraudster, not President Trump.”
However, investigators have so far determined that the document — a limited power of attorney form used by James’ niece to sign documents on her behalf when James closed on the home — was never considered by the loan officers who approved the mortgage, sources said.
A former police officer with Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, Siebert graduated from law school in 2009 and has worked as an assistant United States attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia since 2010. In addition to serving as a line prosecutor, Siebert headed the office’s organized drug crime task force and supervised the office’s Richmond division from 2019 to 2024.
Siebert began serving as the interim U.S. attorney on Jan. 21 after the late Jessica Aber, who ran the office from 2021-25, resigned following President Trump’s inauguration. Both of Virginia’s Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, recommended Siebert to Trump in April, and Trump nominated him for the position in May.
“Mr. Siebert has dedicated his career to protecting public safety, from his work with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department to his handling of violent crimes and firearms trafficking as a line Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. With his experience and dedication to service, Mr. Siebert is equipped to handle the challenges and important obligations associated with this position,” Warner and Kaine said in a statement in May, pledging to support his nomination.
After his 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired in May, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unanimously agreed to extend Siebert’s tenure in the position.
One of the most high-profile federal prosecutors’ offices in the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia serves over six million people with a staff of 300 prosecutors. Among the nation’s fastest-moving trial courts, the Eastern District of Virginia often handles significant terrorism and intelligence-related cases because of its proximity to Washington and the multiple government offices in its jurisdiction.
