“Albany’s Backroom Slush Fund Deal is a Brazen Act of Insider Self-Dealing.”
NEW YORK – Crime-fighting attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy today demanded that incumbent Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul explain why they continue to earmark $10 million in taxpayer money for James’s personal legal defense. The Public Officers Law already protects public officials from lawsuits involving official government actions; the state budget is not supposed to provide funding for personal legal disputes, the former top federal prosecutor and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency chief of staff said.
“At a time when Albany can’t make ends meet, and lawmakers are raising taxes to fill the gap, why does the state budget still have $10 million in taxpayer money earmarked for Letitia James’s personal legal bills? It’s outrageous.”
“Letitia James spent years telling New Yorkers that no one is above the law,” Ms. Komatireddy said. “She cynically built a career, a brand, and two election victories on that slogan. Now she wants New York’s working families, already crushed by the highest taxes in America, to pick up the tab for her personal legal bills. This blatant self-dealing must end.”
Albany Democrats quietly buried the $10 million legal defense appropriation inside the state’s 2026 budget without a single public hearing on the matter. The provision purports to be general law, available to any state official subject to federal investigation. In reality, the provision was written for Letitia James specifically, by Letitia James’s political allies, signed by Letitia James’s fellow Democrat Kathy Hochul, and funded by Letitia James’s constituents, who were never informed. It now reappears in the state’s 2027 executive budget.
“As the saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. James’s allies snuck this slush fund past taxpayers last year without anyone noticing. That cannot be allowed to happen again.”
New York’s Public Officers Law authorizes defense reimbursement for conduct arising from the exercise of official duties. The charges against James — that she misrepresented facts related to a Norfolk, Virginia property to obtain a lower mortgage rate on a personal real estate transaction — had no nexus whatsoever to her role as Attorney General. She was not purchasing property on behalf of the State of New York. She was not acting under the auspices of her office. She was buying a house. “That is private financial conduct, and the public shouldn’t be taxed for it,” Ms. Komatireddy continued.
“This is the institutional corruption that comes with 30 years of one-party rule in New York State. And Albany once again advanced it in a budget bill to keep it under the public’s radar,” the former prosecutor said.
“New York is losing residents faster than any state in the nation. Its cost of living is the highest in America. And since 2019, when James came into office, crime is up 26 percent, drug deaths are up 63 percent, and homelessness is up 38 percent. The state’s own budget office projects structural deficits for years to come.”
“Against that backdrop, state officials appropriating $10 million — not to ease the financial distress of everyday New Yorkers but to insulate one far-left politician from the legal consequences of her own private conduct — is unacceptable. Every New Yorker who pays state income taxes is entitled to be enraged by it,” Ms. Komatireddy concluded.