A prosecutor inside Letitia James’ own office put her alleged misconduct in writing.
Daniel Wiesenfeld, a former Brooklyn prosecutor now assigned to the Investor Protection Bureau in the New York Attorney General’s office, sent an email to hundreds of colleagues on Friday. In it, he alleges he was instructed by bureau chief Shamiso Maswoswe to “find and pursue crimes committed by specific individuals and organizations affiliated with Donald Trump,” without having a credible reason to do so. The targets named were Trump himself, Truth Social, and Hewlett-Packard.
That is the inverse of how legitimate law enforcement is supposed to work. You find the crime, then you find the suspect. Not the other way around.
As originally reported, this allegation lands with particular weight given what James said publicly when she ran for attorney general in 2018. Her campaign promise was direct: “We will prosecute the president for crimes committed in New York state.” Not follow the evidence. Not enforce the law equally. Prosecute the president. The target was named before a single file was reviewed.
Wiesenfeld drew that line himself. He wrote that if people find it troubling that Trump is accused of using Justice Department attorneys to go after political enemies, they should find it “equally troubling that Tish is doing exactly the same thing.”
The email, sent to hundreds of colleagues inside the AG’s office, is not an anonymous tip or a leaked document. It is a named, on-the-record written statement from a sitting prosecutor raising a serious allegation against his own leadership.
The core accusation is straightforward. Wiesenfeld says his bureau chief directed staff to pursue specific people connected to Trump without a credible predicate for doing so. That is a significant claim. In any functioning justice system, investigations are supposed to begin with evidence of wrongdoing, not with a list of politically undesirable names.
James has long faced criticism from conservatives, including former Trump adviser Alina Habba, who argued that James was conducting a politically motivated hunt rather than a legitimate legal inquiry. The civil fraud case James brought against Trump resulted in a major judgment, though critics argued throughout that the investigation was shaped by political intent from the start.
Wiesenfeld’s email does not resolve that broader legal debate. What it does is give that argument a new and notable source, someone employed inside the office itself.
Whether the allegation leads to any formal review or internal consequence remains to be seen. But a sitting prosecutor putting his name on a written claim that his office was told to target individuals for political reasons, and sending that claim to hundreds of colleagues, is not something that disappears quietly.
The question now is whether anyone with authority to investigate the investigators will.