President Donald Trump said on Friday that he wants his handpicked U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia “out,” after reports that the prosecutor declined to pursue criminal charges in an inquiry into New York Attorney General Letitia James.
ABC News reported that Trump is expected to fire Erik S. Siebert after investigators in Siebert’s office were unable to find incriminating evidence of mortgage fraud against Ms. James. According to sources, Trump’s decision followed the prosecutor’s conclusion that the evidence did not support an indictment — a finding that drew sharp criticism from the White House.
“I want him out,” Mr. Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, saying he was moved by the fact that Virginia’s two Democratic senators had supported Siebert’s nomination. “When I saw that he got approved by those two men, I said, pull it, because he can’t be any good. When I learned that they voted for him, I said, I don’t really want him.”
After Siebert declined to seek an indictment, sources told ABC News, the president opted to remove him. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Ms. James was “very guilty of something,” though federal prosecutors in Virginia had reportedly found no clear evidence that she knowingly committed mortgage fraud in a 2023 home purchase. According to the reporting, Trump officials nonetheless pushed Siebert to bring criminal charges.
Siebert was notified on Thursday of the president’s intention to remove him and was informed that Friday would be his final day on the job, the sources said.
Abbe D. Lowell, an attorney for Ms. James, denounced the expected firing as “a brazen attack on the rule of law.” In a statement to ABC News, Lowell said: “Firing people until he finds someone who will bend the law to carry out his revenge has been the President’s pattern — and it’s illegal. Punishing this prosecutor, a Trump appointee, for doing his job sends a clear and chilling message that anyone who dares uphold the law over politics will face the same fate.”
The anticipated departure has thrown one of the nation’s most prominent U.S. attorney’s offices into uncertainty. Administration officials have so far been unable to identify a clear successor to lead the Eastern District of Virginia, which handles a heavy caseload of national-security and intelligence-related prosecutions given its proximity to Washington. The office serves a population of more than six million and employs roughly 300 prosecutors.
Maya Song, the office’s first assistant U.S. attorney and the next in the line of succession, has been the subject of private discussions among senior Justice Department and administration officials about removing her from that role, sources said. Song, a career prosecutor who joined the office in 2013, became the No. 2 official last October and previously worked in the office of then-Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco during the Biden administration.
The developments prompted alarm among career prosecutors, according to DOJ officials, who warned of possible collateral damage including resignations or other departures that could undermine the office’s work.
White House officials did not comment on Siebert’s employment status.
Legal observers and critics said firing a U.S. attorney for declining to charge one of the president’s political rivals would mark an escalation in what opponents describe as a pattern of retribution. The broader inquiry environment includes investigations and public pressure surrounding other figures such as Senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused Ms. James of acting out of political bias — a charge he made repeatedly during his 2023 civil fraud trial in New York. Following a three-month trial, a New York judge found that Mr. Trump and his family had committed years of business fraud by overstating property values to obtain favorable loans, and levied nearly half a billion dollars in fines; an appeals court later vacated the financial penalty but left intact the finding of fraud.
The mortgage-fraud inquiry into Ms. James stemmed from a criminal referral sent to the Justice Department in April by Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Trump administration officials argue the referral was prompted by a document tied to Ms. James’s 2023 home purchase that they say falsely indicated the property would be her primary residence. Mr. Pulte told Fox News last month that he believed the matter “is riddled with mortgage fraud.”
Investigators, however, determined that the contested document — a limited power of attorney used by Ms. James’s niece to sign closing documents — was not considered by the loan officers who approved the mortgage, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.
Siebert, a former Washington, D.C., police officer, graduated from law school in 2009 and has served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia since 2010. He has led the office’s organized drug crime task force and supervised its Richmond division from 2019 to 2024. Siebert became interim U.S. attorney on Jan. 21 after his predecessor resigned following the presidential inauguration. Both of Virginia’s Democratic senators — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — recommended Siebert to the White House in April, and Mr. Trump formally nominated him in May. In May, federal judges for the Eastern District of Virginia unanimously agreed to retain him in the post after his initial 120-day interim term expired.
The dispute over Siebert’s removal is likely to draw continued scrutiny from lawmakers and the legal community in the days ahead.
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