Overview
- Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld sent an agency-wide email Friday accusing his bureau chief, Shamiso Maswoswe, of directing him to "find and pursue" crimes tied to President Trump, Truth Social and Hewlett-Packard.
- The message reached about 2,000 staff before it was remotely deleted from agency servers, and Wiesenfeld was placed on paid administrative leave while the office treats the incident as a personnel matter.
- Wiesenfeld’s note said the office spent "significant public taxpayer dollars" on politically convenient targets and cited alleged neglect of nonprofit homeless shelter fraud and antisemitic crimes near synagogues.
- The attorney general’s office has rejected the allegation of politically motivated targeting and called it an internal personnel issue, and the claims have not been independently corroborated.
- The episode adds to a long-running legal and political feud between Attorney General Letitia James and President Trump, recalls a 2024 civil liability finding and a 2025 appellate rollback of penalties, and raises possible scrutiny of records handling, prosecutorial discretion and electoral fallout going forward.