The Harvard-educated daughter of Indian immigrants is running for New York attorney general against Trump nemesis Letitia James.
Wall Street Journal
By Tunku Varadarajan
Sept. 8, 2026
New York hasn’t elected a Republican as attorney general since 1995, when Dennis Vacco was voted in as the state’s chief legal officer. Former federal prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy, 41, is determined to bring her party back in from the wilderness in November. Her opponent, Letitia “Tish” James, 67, is the fifth consecutive Democrat in the job, now running for a third term. The state’s demographics favor Ms. James. Statewide, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1. In 2022, Ms. James defeated Michael Henry, her Republican opponent, by 54.6% to 45.35%.
Ms. Komatireddy is running as a tough-on-crime candidate in a state that would appear to need one. The daughter of Indian immigrants who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, she’s a Harvard-educated lawyer who won convictions against Islamist terrorists and Mexican drug lords when she worked as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York. Her résumé includes a spell as law clerk for Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the U.S. Court of Appeals, and she has served as the chief of staff of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Most dauntingly, she’s the mother of two sets of twins, aged 7 and 2.
I spoke to Ms. Komatireddy at a playground in Central Park while she kept a close eye on her 7-year-old boys, darting nearby.
Tunku Varadarajan: What exactly is the AG’s job, as you see it?
Saritha Komatireddy: To keep New Yorkers safe, to protect them from crime, to protect them from violations of their rights.
The job has come to be seen more as one of civil enforcement than the law-and-order part that you emphasize. Is that fair to say?
That’s part of the problem. The powers of the state AG are immense. In fact, the AG has more power to improve the lives of New Yorkers than any mayor or legislator. You just have to have someone who uses those powers for the good of New Yorkers.
Those who say the job is mostly civil enforcement misunderstand the authorities of the AG. Look at Dennis Vacco, Eliot Spitzer and even Andrew Cuomo. Past attorneys general, Republican and Democrat, have used their powers to prosecute crime. The head of the Organized Crime Task Force is appointed to prosecute organized crime. What does that mean? If you actually read the law, it says any crime that crosses a county line. In New York City, that’s every crime. That’s subway crime, car theft, shoplifting and many hate crimes. The Task Force is just one jurisdictional grant. There are other parts of the executive law that talk about how the AG can prosecute any crime that a DA can prosecute, under different circumstances. So, for example, the MTA commissioner has been very vocal that he wants fares enforced. The AG can work with the MTA commissioner to do that. The current AG doesn’t. And we’re losing $1 billion a year.
For the 20th time this year, an innocent New Yorker has been pushed onto the subway tracks. Why? Because we allow people to come into the subways who haven’t paid the fare, who are mentally ill or on drugs, or are criminals, repeat offenders. There’s no enforcement and it makes people less safe.
Has Letitia James taken her eye off the ball on crime?
It’s not just that she accidentally took her eye off the ball. She doesn’t believe in prosecuting crime. She’s a pro-criminal, anticop attorney general. She constantly advocates for criminals to be released into our communities. She supports our current bail laws, which have resulted in a catch-and-release pattern, a revolving door of criminals getting arrested and released an hour later, there being no consequences for crime. Fifty-four million dollars of the AG’s resources have gone to antipolice organizations advocating for defunding the NYPD and ending all pretrial detention. She has twice as many people assigned to the unit that prosecutes cops than the unit that prosecutes criminals.
You’re saying that Ms. James has been a failure on public safety.
She doesn’t pay attention to public safety. New Yorkers deserve to have an AG who wakes up every morning thinking about how she can make New York safer. She doesn’t do that. She uses our taxpayer money to pursue personal vendettas. She wakes up every morning trying to figure out how she can make herself a political celebrity. And what has New York gotten for it? Crime is up, homelessness is up. Fraud and corruption are endemic. New Yorkers feel less safe and they feel ripped off. It’s time to turn the page and focus on public safety.
You’re saying she’s a politician, but you’re not one.
I’m not one.
What are you?
I’m a prosecutor.
Talk about your background.
I was born in Brooklyn. My dad is from a small village in India that had no running water, and he left India when it was a socialist country. He came here for the same reason many New Yorkers’ families come here: work hard, dream big and have a shot at achieving your dreams.
The first U.S. attorney general I served under was Loretta Lynch. And I served under presidents of both parties. I prosecuted terrorists in al Qaeda and ISIS. I prosecuted leaders in the Mexican drug cartels. I became chief of staff of the DEA under Joe Biden.
What attracts you to prosecution?
Have you ever talked to a crime victim? When you talk to people who’ve been hurt, the pain in their voice is palpable. Crime victims say to me, You’re the first one who’s really listened. I want you to know my story. I was in Syracuse, and a man came up to me after my speech and he couldn’t speak. I thought he might be choking, but he was overcome with emotion. He said, I want you to know I lost my son to fentanyl. No one’s listened to me before. You’re the first person who’s fighting for us.
Crime victims feel no one is paying attention to them. The elected officials in New York don’t even acknowledge there’s a problem. If you can’t acknowledge there’s a problem, you’re not qualified to fix it. A 12-year-old boy was shot in the Bronx. He rode his bike to the bodega to buy a ball. He was caught in a crossfire, shot dead. I went to see the mother at the vigil outside her home. She was crying. Crying is not even the right word. If you’ve heard a mother wail after she loses her child, it doesn’t leave you.
I was a terrorism prosecutor. When I look at crime, I look at what we can prevent. Our goal is to prevent harm from happening. Catch it early. Find the warning signs, intervene. For innocent people, it prevents them from getting hurt. For the people who are about to commit the crime, it prevents them from doing something irreversible. It gives them an opportunity to get on the right path.
New York’s “bail reform” has been a disaster.
I’ve spoken with public defenders and probation officers. They tell me bail reform is actually bad for their clients. It used to be that when someone came in, they had a chance to get them on the right path. Intervene early. But now, by the time they’re in, it’s too late. I talked to a father in Washington County last week, in the northeastern part of the state. He asked me my views on bail reform and said, I want you to know that my son was arrested. And then he was released, rearrested, and released again. I wish they had kept him in because there was no intervention.
This father asked what you thought of bail reform. What did you say?
I told him it went too far. Most New Yorkers agree someone shouldn’t sit in jail because they can’t afford the bail. But they should be in pretrial detention if they’re dangerous. We overcorrected. We need to get back to common sense. How do we do that? There’s one simple fix. Give judges discretion in every case and allow them to consider dangerousness. We’re the only state that doesn’t permit that. In federal courts, where I practiced, dangerousness was the first thing we argued.
There was a judge recently in Queens, in the case of a street takeover by cars [in April]. The guy finally caught was a repeat offender. The judge released him but was very upset about it. Judges don’t speak out because they feel they can’t be political. But this Democratic appointee said: This person is a danger to the community, but our laws don’t permit me to consider that. So I have to release him. But this is an injustice. This isn’t a partisan issue. These are things most New Yorkers agree on. We need to lock up repeat offenders.
Homelessness is another issue you’ve espoused.
It’s unconscionable that we have a homelessness crisis in New York. That should never happen in America. But here we are, in 2026, in New York, and homelessness has gone up 38% since 2019. And so has our spending on the problem. It has tripled and the problem has gotten worse, even though our population has gone down.
We don’t have a resource problem. We spend $81,000 per homeless person per year in New York. Where is that money going? You could give a guy $81,000 and he wouldn’t be homeless tomorrow. The state comptroller, the city comptroller, the inspector general of the state, the Department of Health, they’ve all said there’s red flags. There’s homeless shelter CEOs making $1 million a year while New Yorkers are sleeping on the streets. There’s allegations of sexual abuse, of embezzlement. There have been multiple calls for investigation. But who’s supposed to investigate? The AG! But she totally ignores the issue.
What’s your plan for homelessness?
We have to actually take care of our homeless population. That means a couple of things. One, make sure the shelters are safe and effective. The AG has special authority to do that. We have authority to pursue fraud, embezzlement, kickbacks, any criminal activity or civil violations of the law. We can do even more than that, because nearly every homeless shelter in the state is a nonprofit. Every nonprofit in the state has to register with the AG and is subject to oversight. The AG can ensure there’s no misuse of funds. These nonprofits are supposed to submit financial reports to the AG’s office. We’re going to audit and investigate every homeless shelter in New York. We’re going to figure out which ones are doing a good job, and which ones are not.
You’re going to do an audit of every homeless shelter in the state?
It’s absolutely warranted. Some people are doing a good job, and we should support them. Some people are not, and we should give them a chance to fix their operations or shut them down. And some people are committing crime and fraud and we should pursue that without fear or favor. Homeless NGOs are already obligated to submit annual filings with the AG’s office. The question is, what is the AG doing right now? Is she even looking at the documentation?
The other thing that’s important is providing residential treatment for New Yorkers with severe mental illness and drug addiction. Those are the drivers of the homelessness crisis. New York used to have more in-patient psych capacity. They shut them down over the last 10 years for bad reasons. We need to bring that back. If you talk to mental-health professionals across the state, you’ll see broad agreement on this. You need to have residential treatment centers all across New York.
How do we pay for it?
We have $3 billion that we’ve received in opioid settlement money. When Purdue Pharma shut down, every state got some money. New York state received $3 billion. And because it’s settlement money, the AG has to sign off on how it’s used.
So where is the money right now? In escrow?
Very good question. People have tried to trace where it’s going. It’s exactly what always happens in Albany. It’s going to little pet projects. There’s no accountability. Some money went to lawnmowers. Some money went to tasers. Some money went to virtual reality headsets. Some money went to a baby shower, and some money actually is going to drug injection sites. I live 20 blocks from one of these. A place where homeless people go in, get needles and swabs and listen to music, shoot up, and then are sent back out onto the streets and subways. Money intended to end the opioid crisis is being used to fund drug use. That’s unethical. It’s cruel. It’s illegal.
There’s a New York Focus investigation into this opioid money. They found that they can’t trace where all of it went. But the good news is that less than half a billion has been spent. Most of it is left. My proposal is simple. We freeze that money and use it to fund residential treatment for every New Yorker who needs it. As a state, when we’ve gotten $3 billion in a “lottery,” we should use it to make a generational change that will improve the lives of New Yorkers. That’s what I’ll do. There’s no one right now in state government who’s even thinking that way.
I call my approach “Law and order / Love and order.” It really is about making sure we take care of New Yorkers. That’s not even on the AG’s radar. Letitia James has had two terms in office. The only reason she gets to run again is because we don’t have term limits in New York.
But New York has an awful lot of Democrats . . .
Well, here’s the thing. What I’m talking about—locking up repeat offenders, building residential treatment for the homeless, rooting out fraud—those are 80/20 issues, Republican or Democrat. Most people agree on them. I’m going to be able to work with anyone who’s serious about keeping New Yorkers safe, regardless of their politics.
Have you had conversations with Mayor Mamdani?
I have not. I’m happy to speak with him, if he’d like to speak with me.
If elected, you’re going to have to work with him.
Of course. We’ll work with anyone. I will work with anyone who wants to keep New Yorkers safe.
Have you had conversations with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch?
I haven’t, but again, I’m happy to speak with her. She’s a good example of exactly what I’m proposing. She’s a nonpartisan law enforcement professional that people across party lines feel they can trust to keep them safe. New Yorkers deserve an AG who’s the same way, a nonpartisan law enforcement professional whom you can trust.
Alvin Bragg is the New York County district attorney. He embodies softness on crime. How would you work with him?
Alvin Bragg is, like Letitia James, a pro-criminal politician. He’s done everything he can to release criminals from prison and put them back in our communities. The AG can step in and override a DA. Alvin Bragg, on his first day in office, sent out a memo saying he’s not going to prosecute nine categories of crime. Predictably, those categories of crime have increased.
There was a time when the AG’s office was a partner in criminal law enforcement. It’s not anymore. And this takes a toll. I’ve had former DAs tell me they would request help and get declination letters from the AG. In New York City, we have a hate crimes problem. Jewish New Yorkers feel it. Frankly, New Yorkers of all backgrounds feel it. Hate crimes have doubled under Tish James. They’ve increased under Alvin Bragg. Tish James has never prosecuted a hate crime in her seven years. Not once, even though the AG’s office has special jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes.
Are you going to have pre-election debates with Ms. James?
We have a debate scheduled for Oct. 8. I challenged her to a series of debates in every major city in New York. She has accepted only one. Because state law requires her to accept one.
She’s going to go after you on things that will play well with her base. You’ve been endorsed by President Trump.
I’m not a caricature of a Republican candidate. I served on President Obama’s National Oil Spill Commission. I was hired to be a federal prosecutor and was promoted by both Republicans and Democrats. I became chief of staff of the DEA under Joe Biden. I prosecuted an al Qaeda bomb maker who tried to wipe out a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. The jury found him guilty on all counts. And when I took over the narcotics unit. I prosecuted the highest-level Mexican government official to be charged and convicted in the U.S.
Who are some of the New York AGs you regard as people who did the job well?
Dennis Vacco was the last federal prosecutor to become state attorney general. He had the focus I have, which is public safety, not politics. Be a trusted, nonpartisan law enforcement professional. That’s the job. If you’re interested in constantly fighting international and national politics, you should run for Congress, not the AG’s office.
Why has Ms. James won twice if she’s doing such a bad job?
I can’t answer that question.
Give it a shot.
I wasn’t running against her.
Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at NYU Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute.
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