In a recent development, former assistant New York solicitor general Brian Ginsberg has accused New York attorney general Letitia James of misusing her prosecutorial powers.
This allegation comes in the wake of similar accusations made by President Donald Trump and his allies, suggesting a pattern of behavior that raises serious questions about James's conduct in office.
According to The Washington Free Beacon, Ginsberg, who served under James from 2019 to 2022, submitted a filing to the Supreme Court on May 12. In this document, he claimed that James was overstepping her authority in a current Title IX case against a school district in western New York.
The case revolves around four separate allegations of sexual misconduct among students. Ginsberg urged the Supreme Court to intervene and prevent "opportunistic attorneys general" like James from misusing their parens patriae powers. This doctrine, which James used to justify her involvement in the case, allows the government to prosecute lawsuits on behalf of individual citizens in certain circumstances.
Ginsberg's filing also pointed to a previous instance where James was accused of abusing her powers. He cited a New York supreme court justice's comments from November 2024, in which the justice criticized James for initiating a politically motivated environmental case against Pepsi.
The case was ultimately dismissed. Ginsberg quoted the justice's remarks in his filing, stating, "The same New York State Attorney General who initiated this action against the School District has been judicially chastised for abusing her power to initiate representative actions to launch 'predatory lawsuits that seek to impose punishment while searching for a crime.'"
These allegations of prosecutorial abuse against James mirror those made by Trump's attorney, Clifford Robert, in January 2024. Robert condemned James for her "shameless abuse of power" in her attempts to prosecute Trump.
Ginsberg, who declined to comment for this article, is intimately familiar with the rules governing James's prosecutorial powers. As one of her assistant solicitor generals, he was part of a select group of attorneys that pursued appellate cases at the state and federal levels on behalf of James.
Ginsberg's experience includes litigating over a dozen cases in the Supreme Court, such as a 2021 case against the National Rifle Association and a 2020 case where he unsuccessfully defended New Yorks coronavirus restrictions on places of worship.
In 2022, Ginsberg left James's office to work in the private sector. He is currently defending the Niagara Wheatfield Central School District against a 2021 lawsuit from James. The attorney general alleges that the school district systematically failed to protect its students from sexual assault and bullying by their classmates and is seeking to force the district to "stop its unlawful practices."
James based her case on four separate instances of student-on-student sexual assault and bullying at various schools. While state attorneys general are typically prohibited from intervening in legal disputes between individuals or small groups, James invoked the parens patriae doctrine. She argued that she had standing to pursue the case because the school's conduct affected "the health and well-being of the People of the State of New York as a whole."
In 2022, a federal district court dismissed the suit, ruling against James. However, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this decision in October 2024, allowing the case to proceed.
Ginsberg has since appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Second Circuit wrongly allowed James to continue with the case "on the basis of unrelated incidents involving individual students." He believes this does not warrant the use of the "extraordinary mechanism of parens patriae litigation by the State of New York." Ginsberg also called on the Supreme Court to clarify the rules governing parens patriae powers, which he claims are often misused by aggressive state attorneys general like James.
This is not the only controversy surrounding James. The Department of Justice recently launched an investigation into allegations that she falsified documents to secure favorable loans on her properties in New York and Virginia.
Prominent Republicans have pointed out the irony of these allegations, given that James previously secured a $486 million judgment against Trump for allegedly falsifying his business records. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) highlighted this hypocrisy, stating, "Tish James allegedly committed the same crime that she falsely and illegally prosecuted President Donald Trump for."
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