AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.
Interim U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert told employees at his office that he intends to resign, ABC News reported on Friday.
Siebert, who is the top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, has come under intense pressure from President Donald Trump to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. The day before, ABC News reported that Trump officials had informed Siebert of the president’s intention to fire him.
The president was reportedly leaning on Siebert to bring charges against James after the administration accused her of falsely claiming her house in Virginia as her primary residence despite being legally required to live in New York as the state’s attorney general.
Siebert, who was nominated for the post in May, was reportedly finding it difficult to bring a prosecutable case against James, with whom Trump has feuded for years. That tension culminated in the attorney general’s lawsuit against the Trump Organization for fraud. A judge ruled that the president and the Trump Organization “deceived banks, insurers, and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing financing.”
Trump was ordered to pay more than $300 million to the state, but that judgment was tossed last month by a New York appeals court.
The president has reportedly been leaning on federal prosecutors to bring charges against James for alleged mortgage fraud. She has been accused of falsely claiming her house in Virginia as her primary residence despite being legally required to live in New York as an elected official there.
ABC cited two sources in its report on Siebert’s intention to resign.
In April, Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice in which he claimed that James falsified records in connection with her purchase of a home in Virginia in 2023.
