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A former prosecutor in the New York attorney general’s office claims that Letitia James is threatening him after he blew the whistle on a scheme to take down President Trump – as he refuses to delete evidence of the alleged corruption.
Daniel Wiesenfeld, who worked in James’ Investor Protection Bureau before he was axed last month, defiantly told his former boss Monday he would not be handing over “confidential and privileged” materials, according to email obtained by the Times-Union.
The blistering email also included a photo of a detective’s business card from the AG’s Executive Protection Detail that had been jammed into his front door, the paper reported.
“I am in receipt of your September 18th letter threatening me with ‘professional discipline, as well as civil and/or criminal action’ and your subsequent September 30th letter providing a deadline by 5pm today for me to confirm my destruction of your ‘confidential and/or privileged information’,” Wiesenfeld wrote Monday.
A whistleblower in the state Attorney General’s Office was ordered to dig up dirt on President Trump, even after a year-long probe found no wrongdoing – because it was what AG Letitia James was demanding, he told The Post.
Daniel Wiesenfeld, a prosecutor in the Investor Protection Bureau, claimed he was told by Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe to keep trying to make a case against Trump and his pals despite finding no evidence that there was a crime.
“By June 2026, after several meetings, we had become exasperated,” Wiesenfeld told The Post in an exclusive interview. “Shamiso told us, in sum and substance, that she agreed with us and that if it were her call, she would close the case – but that it was Tish’s call.
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Wiesenfeld has been at odds with his boss since August, when he blasted out an email to more than 2,000 colleagues claiming he was being forced to find dirt on Trump and his pals.
“If you believe Trump is using the [Department of Justice] attorneys to prosecute his enemies to further his political interests, you should find it equally troubling that Tish is doing exactly the same thing,” the email said.
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He was later fired.
The controversy started when he was assigned to investigate an insider-trading claim against a company affiliated with the Trump family. He said the case was based on a tip from a “cryptic text” that was never shared with him.
Wiesenfeld said he was given the assignment on July 25, 2025, with the tip from an unlisted phone number suggesting that Donald Trump Jr. and his associates were selling inside info to private companies for millions.
“I asked for information about the cryptic text and any context that could be provided, but my boss, Shamiso Maswoswe, told me they could not provide me with more information.
Despite being kept in the dark, “we affirmatively conclude that no crime had taken place,” Wiesenfeld said.
When he was told to keep pursuing the case, he said he “pushed back.
“I said the investigation was a waste of time and that there was no way forward,” he told The Post. “Nevertheless, I was directed to send subpoenas to several banks, wasting taxpayer dollars and the banks’ resources on what I believed was a fruitless, politically motivated investigation.”
The Post later confirmed that the FBI and DOJ also looked into Wiesenfeld’s claims.
Keith Ellison says Republicans mean to cheat in the midterms, and people should be "ready to protest, take to the streets."
"Don't act like, oh, they couldn't mean that. They mean it...So be ready to get your dukes up."
angrychair (13,104 posts)
Not to say we told you so
..but we told you so. Yes, I'm talking to you Jared Polis.
This is what being bipartisan gets you.
This is what being a centrist gets you.
President Donald Trump is, apparently, being advised on the midterms by former Colorado elections clerk Tina Peters. The two met Monday at the White House.
Yes, you read that correctly. Tina Peters, a convicted felon, is meeting with the president of the United States, in the oval office, on how to manipulate the outcome of the midterm elections.
Their plan?
“There is local control,” Martin said of U.S. elections. “However, the laws that govern the system, like safety and national security, are federal laws. So Tina Peters, famous Colorado clerk, was in the Oval Office today just two hours ago talking about this question. The president’s taking it seriously.”
Their pitch is that voting machines are made with foreign sourced parts and is therefore compromised and a national security threat and that Mango Mussolini should declare a national security emergency and seize all voting machines nationwide.
That is the pitch. What will come of that meeting, if anything, is the open question. The fact that he took the meeting at all and spent 2 hours discussing it with her in a one-on-one meeting, should be incredibly concerning on its own.
Im not going to hypothesize on what might happen but it is clear that they are planning something and we, as US citizens, need to take that seriously. Because they sure as hell are taking it seriously.
Reference: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/tina-peters-has-trump-s-ear-on-the-midterms/ar-AA2dKm7D
Fiendish Thingy (26,195 posts)
8. They do not control all the levers of power
They don’t control the states, and they don’t control the people, who could surround polling places and tabulation centres to create a physical barrier to prevent seizure.
Courts could act preemptively and issue injunctions blocking seizure, and governors and legislatures could order elections re-done on a new date with injunctions and armed protection in place. (This happened in Louisiana this summer)
As with all doomsday scenarios, it is critical to ask “then what?” to every assertion, and consider all variables and potential responses, including pushback and resistance from the states, courts and people, including the use of deadly force. Any discussion that doesn’t do this, and merely presumes effective success by the perpetrators, cannot be taken seriously.
bluestarone (23,207 posts)
30. I hear you and believe YOU know lots we don't know. Can i ask you a then what?
Here ya go. ICE just went into like 4 states at the same time and took there ballots and destroyed them. Here ya go, so THEN WHAT? I know this didn't happen YET but do you have a then what answer? LOTS of people here (including myself at times the closer we get) would just like this then what question answered.
Fiendish Thingy (26,195 posts)
35. I'm just a guy who reads a lot, and thinks things through before reacting.
Possible “then what?” answers (which would, of course generate “then what?” questions of their own)
1. The 4 states pre-emptively obtained injunctions against ballot seizure before election day, blocking deployment of agents.
2. No injunction, but when they arrive, ICE is met with armed state/NG forces protecting polling places/tabulation centres. They are kept at bay as a court issues an injunction within an hour of their arrival. Because some polling places have to be temporarily closed, the governor orders polls to stay open longer to compensate (this has happened many times for various reasons)
3. Rumours spread that ICE is will attempt to seize ballots, and on election day, thousands of folks who have organized ahead of time surround the targeted locations and form a human chain (plans for this are already being developed).
4. The scenario you describe succeeds, ballots are seized and either destroyed or “contaminated”, rendering them uncountable. Dozens, if not hundreds, of races cannot be certified, including for state offices and municipal races in Ruby red Republican areas. The Governor convenes an emergency session of the legislature and schedules a re-do election for two weeks later, activates the National Guard to protect voters and ballots, and seeks an injunction against the federal government.
(Ordering a re-do of an election happened this summer in Louisiana, for different reasons than what you describe)
Those are just a short list of possible answers to “then what?” Because of all the human variables involved, there could easily be hundreds more, combinations of various responses, etc.
That’s why I vigorously challenge any claim that a particular scenario will succeed, unfettered, unobstructed, without a response, reaction or resistance that interferes, impedes or renders unachievable the desired outcome.
We are dealing with incompetent buffoons who very well may try something drastic and extreme, but have a track record of failure much longer than their success. They can initiate chaos and destruction, but after that, they control almost nothing.
The most important thing to never forget is the following absolute truth:
Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless
This truth has been proven time and time again, in Portland, and Chicago, and Minneapolis, and all across the country.
Hope this was helpful.
https://democraticunderground.com/100221548879
A family in San Francisco is grieving today. Ulysses Tykee Davis, a 47-year-old security guard known to friends, his wife, and his six children as “Bear,” was shot in the back in a chaotic scene at the Warwick Hotel, where a reality TV show was filming. Davis's wife and two of his children witnessed the shooting.
Shakia Vanderbilt, a member of a notorious "smash and grab" retail theft ring known as "The Rainbow Crew," was arrested and charged with homicide, discharging a firearm into an occupied building, and possessing a firearm as a felon, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the 2010s, Vanderbilt was a member of what was first called "The Rainbow Girls." They were doing smash-and-grab robberies at high-end retail stores before the practice became national news. Authorities claim the crew stole more than $1 million worth of goods.
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Vanderbilt was arrested in 2014 for an alleged theft at a TJ Maxx store in Daly City, where she stabbed a security guard on her way out of the door. "She was also arrested along with other crew members in 2017 following an hours-long chase in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that stemmed from a robbery earlier that day in Los Angeles, and the suspects were found with $15,000 worth of stolen property in their vehicle," notes SFist.
SFist reported in 2016 that "16 members of the crew had been charged in San Francisco in connection with 23 retail thefts totaling around $200,000."
Vanderbilt never went to prison. Her criminal cases are still "pending."
Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham apparently made to troll transgender activists by wearing a hat with the word “woman” on it at the Mizzou football game on Saturday.
Cunningham, a Missouri grad, attended Missouri’s homecoming game wearing a ball cap that read “No Cis Just … Woman.” The first part appears in smaller letters on the side of the cap, and “Woman” is in large letters on the front, the LA Times reported.
To bring the message home, when Cunningham was announced from the booth over the PA system, she entered the field to applause, and she pointed with both hands to the cap.
Cunningham has repeatedly said that she has no hate for transgender people. But she also feels that men claiming to be women should not be allowed to compete in sports against women.
