How New York AG Letitia James Got Busted

Brought Low by the Gumshoe Detective Work of an Inspired Citizen Journalist

I had the good fortune of having a ringside seat at the well deserved smack down of New York State Attorney General Letitia James. What amazes me is how quickly this story made its way from the gumshoe detective work of a citizen journalist to national news.

I am today, April 17, looking at an email I sent to Los Angeles filmmaker Joel Gilbert on March 13 of this year. “This is pretty strong!” I wrote. I had just edited an article for Joel that set the whole process in motion. The article appeared in The Gateway Pundit five days later titled, Big Development: Is Letitia James Guilty of Mortgage Fraud?

The article details James’s own adventures in what looks for all the world like mortgage fraud. As Gilbert revealed, “For over two decades, New York State Attorney General Letitia James repeatedly claimed her Brooklyn apartment building was a four-unit property on mortgage applications—despite official records proving it had five.” The discrepancy might seem minor except that the inaccurate unit count allowed James to secure a more favorable government loan that saved her thousands of dollars annually.

Gateway Pundit’s format allowed for the presentation of the relevant documents. James, of course, was particularly vulnerable to an accusation of this nature. As Gilbert observed, “James is a tireless warrior against real estate fraud. In February 2024, James led a high-profile fraud case against Donald Trump, securing a judgment that found Trump guilty of inflating asset values to secure better loan terms.”

Gilbert is a throwback to an earlier age. He does the kind of gritty detective work professional journalists used to do, at least in the movies. In the several projects we have worked on together, I have been continually impressed by his doggedness, his ingeniousness, and his willingness to ask tough questions.

If they gave Pulitzers for chutzpah, Gilbert might have won for his impromptu interview with Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian, at her Chicago home. The interview was incorporated into Gilbert’s film and companion book, Michelle Obama: 2024.

“Can I ask you one personal question?” Joel asked.

“What is that?” said Marian.

“Is Sasha Obama the daughter of Barack and Michelle? They say she doesn’t look like Malia.”

“No she doesn’t,” answered Marian matter-of-factly, “but she sure does look like Michelle.”

Aware of the deep strife in the Obama marriage at the time of Sasha’s conception through IVF, Gilbert was addressing the rumor that a gentleman other than Barack served as sperm donor. He even names names. Marian’s ambiguous non-denial fueled those rumors.

Gilbert’s most dogged work—captured in his book and film, The Trayvon Hoax—led to the exposure of the most flagrant judicial fraud in anyone’s memory, namely the State of Florida’s presentation of a fake witness at the July 2013 murder trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Combing through endless reams of texts and social media posts, Gilbert deduced that Martin’s real girl friend, the one who was actually on the phone with him before the shooting, was a Haitian American hottie named “Diamond.” When Diamond refused to repeat for the prosecutors the bogus story attorney Benjamin Crump had devised to snare Zimmerman, Crump recruited the obese, mentally challenged Rachel Jeantel to play the role of “phone witness,” a role she played both in depositions and at trial.

To prove his case that Jeantel was no witness at all, Gilbert retained a handwriting expert, a voice expert, and a DNA lab. In his most ingenious move, Gilbert bought a dozen outfits for an imaginary dance troupe from Diamond’s online boutique. As recorded on camera, he had Diamond sign notes to each of the imaginary girls whose names, writ large, just happened to match the words in a letter Diamond had submitted to Crump.

The handwriting matched the writing in Diamond’s letter. Jeantel did not write it as claimed. The real Diamond did. The DNA test showed Diamond and Jeantel to be half sisters. Gilbert had busted this case open. The evidence was conclusive and inarguable. But no one in the mainstream media dared expose this shockingly fraudulent case, one that actually launched the Black Lives Matter movement.

This is why I am surprised how quickly the James story heated up. On March 20, Gateway Pundit followed up with another of Gilbert’s articles, Mortgage Fraud Alert: Did Letitia James Marry Her Father? On March 25 came The Letitia Files: Did Letitia James Illegally Hire a Nonprofit for Her 2013 Campaign?

The New York Post and other conservative publications caught on, but the story really took off on April 15 when the Trump Administration criminally referred New York James to the Department of Justice over accusations of mortgage fraud. It helps to have a DoJ interested in justice.

Today, April 17, if I Google Letitia James, I see a headline from CBS News, “New York Attorney General Letitia James accused of possible mortgage fraud” and from Newsweek, “Letitia James Mortgage Fraud Allegations: What We Know.” There is no ducking the story now.

As Gilbert showed, there is a secret to effective citizen journalism: stick to what you can prove and keep plugging. In my 2020 book, Unmasking Obama (cover designed by Joel Gilbert), I show how all the effective work in exposing Obama’s scandals was initiated by citizen journalists, most of them unpaid. I use the Russian phrase samizdat to describe this network of inspired amateurs, but I also like the phrase coined by a Second Amendment blogger, “a coalition of willing Lilliputians.”

My fellow Lilliputians, fight on!