Letitia James' Six-Word Message After Trump Verdict: "No One Is Above the Law"
New York Attorney General Letitia James reiterated a familiar six-word statement after former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in Manhattan on Thursday.
"No one is above the law," James, a Democrat, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, within the hour that Trump's verdict was read.
The former president and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign. Trump, who pleaded not guilty, and his allies have repeatedly called the case a form of election interference and condemned prosecutors and Judge Juan Merchan following the jury's verdict Thursday.
James has also faced her fair share of attacks from the former president after her business fraud suit against Trump led to him and others associated with the Trump Organization being found liable for defrauding lenders and insurers. Through the lawsuit's trial, which ended with a ruling in February, James repeated the phrase, "No one is above the law," including issuing the warning ahead of her closing arguments in the case.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis also recently used the phrase after winning a Georgia Democratic primary election earlier this month. Willis' office is leading the racketeering case against Trump and over a dozen co-defendants, who are accused of attempting to overturn President Joe Biden's win in 2020 in the state of Georgia. During her victory speech, Willis said that the citizens of Fulton County "delivered a strong and a powerful message" in their vote, "And it's a message that's p****** folks off, but there is no one above the law in this country, nor is there anyone beneath it."
Similar wording has been used by Special Counsel Jack Smith as well, who is leading both federal criminal cases against Trump. In a filing in April to the U.S. Supreme Court, Smith urged the justices to reject Trump's claims that he is free of facing criminal charges for actions he took in office under presidential immunity, writing that a "bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law—including the President."
President Joe Biden's reelection campaign also used the phrase in its message regarding Trump's verdict, which stated, "In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law."
"Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain," the statement continued. "But today's verdict does not change the fact that American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign for comment on James' message Thursday evening.
James' statement did garner backlash from a handful of X users, including the conservative account "End Wokeness," who responded to the attorney general's post, "Except all the criminals roaming the streets of your state right now."
Conservative activist Scott Presler also responded, "Including illegal aliens?"
Political commentator Joey Mannarino added under James' post, "Hunter Biden is. Hillary Clinton is."
Trump called his guilty verdict a "disgrace" in a statement on Thursday, adding, "This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt."
"The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people," the former president said. "And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You have a [George] Soros-backed DA, and the whole thing, we didn't do a thing wrong."
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