TThe two men were born a decade apart in Queens, New York, one heir to a real estate fortune and the other to a political dynasty. Donald Trump became president and Andrew Cuomo became governor, like his father.
Throughout their long and controversial careers, the two seemed untouchable. But, thanks to the recent work of a lifelong public servant, who was born into a large family in Brooklyn with no money or legacy power, each man is suddenly facing a moment of unusual responsibility.
State Attorney General Letitia James, the first black woman to hold a statewide elected position in New York, opened a hole in Cuomo’s pandemic leadership fable with a report in January showing that the state was underreporting deaths in nursing homes for as much as half.
A rapid succession of accusations of sexual harassment against Cuomo in the following weeks removed him from his political position and left open the question of whether he would withdraw his candidacy for re-election in 2022 – or even resign before the end of his current third term.
Trump may be in even greater danger. Since 2019, James’s office has conducted an investigation of business practices within the Trump Organization and the family. Trump has been fighting fiercely in court, but month after month, James manages to dig up financial records that appear to pose a giant legal risk to the former president, analysts say.
“He should be very concerned,” said George Albro, co-president of the New York Progressive Action Network, who has known James since he was a union leader in New York City and she was a public defender. “She will take this to her logical conclusion.”
The Trump case and the Cuomo nursing home scandal generated a torrent of national attention for James, with people outside New York politics wondering how a single state official could cause such a legal wave.
People who have known her since her time as a public defender in New York City – when she was the first black woman to be elected across the city – and her time as a city council member before that wave in acknowledgment: this is Tish.
As the state’s attorney general, James aggressively pursued a complete catalog of progressive causes.
She sued the police department for brutality against people of color, blocked illegal evictions during the pandemic, won a major sexual harassment deal for women in the construction industry, filed an amicus request before the Supreme Court opposed a hasty census and sued to dissolve the National Rifle Association.
She also sued Amazon for allegedly failing to protect workers, sued Facebook as an alleged monopoly and investigated Google for similar reasons. She asked federal regulators to suppress toxins in baby food and called for student debt relief.
“I see the law as both a shield and a sword,” she said in a public discussion last year about black leadership. “And then I wake up every day with a fire in my stomach and I go to the office – well, I actually go to my kitchen – and the question is, what can I do today to make a difference in someone’s life? Who can I sue? “
James recognized previous critics who thought she filed too many lawsuits without doing enough. But she argues that “the law should be a tool for social change” – and with the pressure she exerted on Trump, causing visible stress among family members, the impact of her efforts is evident and the public’s mood is enthusiastic about her.
That kind of momentum has sparked speculation about what could happen to the political pioneer with impeccable grassroots credentials who maintains a large stock of goodwill in New York City, as well as a practical and unarmed approach both inside and outside the campaign.
“Everyone still calls me Tish,” she told Melva M. Miller, executive director of the Association for a better New York, at a public forum last year. “I still have to do my laundry later – I’m still Tish. I have to go to the supermarket – I’m still Tish. “
James, 62, one of eight children, went to a public school in Brooklyn, graduated from Lehmann College at City University of New York and graduated in law from Howard University, the historically black university in Washington DC.
Her earliest memory of the legal system, she said, was to see a court official verbally abuse her mother at a hearing for a brother.
“When I looked around the courtroom, all the defendants and all the family members looked like me, but not everyone in a position of power, and there was something really unbalanced and unfair about it,” said James to Miller.
Prior to his election to the New York City Council in 2003, James worked as a public defender, as a lawyer for the state assembly spokesman and as an assistant attorney general in Brooklyn, where he targeted predatory creditors, defended working families and brought in the first case against the New York City police department for so-called immediate search abuses.
She lost a race in the primaries to join the city council, but managed to resume her candidacy when the incumbent was shot and killed inside the city hall. In her 10 years on the board, she has emerged as an advocate for police reform and better public housing.
She also demonstrated fearlessness in facing powerful political figures, helping to lead the charge against an attempt by the then mayor, Michael Bloomberg, to change city rules and win a third term in office (fight that Bloomberg won).
Some political allies wondered, however, whether James’s antagonistic stance towards the powerful would apply to Cuomo, who opened the way for his political future by endorsing her to be attorney general.
As a candidate under Cuomo’s protection, James insisted that she was “unobstructed and not purchased” by the governor. The results of her bombastic investigation into how the Cuomo administration failed to report deaths in Covid-19 nursing homes show that she meant those words, Albro said.
“She told us she would be independent from the governor and I think she has already proved that,” he said.
Her battle against Trump has the potential to raise James’ profile – and prospects – even further, encouraging open speculation about whether she could even succeed the governor whose alleged misconduct she helped to expose. Before being elected governor, Cuomo was the state’s attorney general – the same position that James now holds.
“I think she wants to be governor, that is clear, and she would be a formidable candidate,” said Albro.
“I think she would be a formidable candidate because she is very dear and well-known in the city and that is a big part of the vote.”