Trump Criticizes New York Attorney General Over Allegations
President Donald Trump recently denounced New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a “disgrace” following claims that her office overlooked substantial evidence relating to $9.6 billion in sanctions violations. This outburst reflects mounting tension regarding James’ handling of investigations into prominent financial improprieties.
Trump’s comments, shared via Truth Social, followed an article from The Gateway Pundit that reported findings from the U.S. Second Circuit, indicating that Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) was implicated in these illegal activities. Specifically, the allegations point to the bank processing at least $9.6 billion in illicit payments to Iranian and Hezbollah entities through its New York branch, tracing back to its Dubai operations.
According to the article, these questionable transactions were revealed through internal reports from whistleblowers within the bank. They reportedly indicated that SCB had hidden all foreign exchange trades, in violation of Deferred Prosecution Agreements established in 2015 and 2019. However, it’s worth noting that One America News (OAN) has not confirmed the accuracy of the information from The Gateway Pundit, especially since a prior whistleblower report cited by The Gateway Pundit was later deemed inaccurate.
“She is a disgrace,” Trump declared.
If verified, the reported transactions could be just a small part of a larger issue, with over $100 billion in additional questionable transactions potentially linked to SCB’s operations in China, specifically aimed at oil and military-related trades.
The report suggests that whistleblowers had previously alerted James and her senior staff about these matters in early 2024. Rather than taking appropriate action, it is alleged that James’ office renewed SCB’s state banking license, ignoring the undisclosed payments from earlier sanctions settlements. It also pointed out that Scott Spiegelman, who works closely with James, later moved to IBM, where he supposedly advised SCB on how to obscure its trade data.
The Gateway Pundit further noted that neither the Federal Reserve nor SWIFT acted to prevent these transactions, despite being aware of the relevant sanctions from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), thereby weakening the U.S.’s “Maximum Pressure” strategy on Iran.
The report is calling for federal prosecutors to step in, citing the need to charge SCB with breaching its deferred prosecution agreement, retrieve sanction enforcement authority from the Fed, and impose hefty fines exceeding $10 billion on the bank.
