Letitia James
speaker
172 appearances
16 recordings
5 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 13 Jan
Letitia James’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in Oct 2025 with 7.
Appearances
He has an enemies list. I'm on it and other individuals who are standing up to him. At the end of the day, it's important that individuals understand that they cannot be afraid, that this type of government, authoritarian government requires cooperation and consent. But democracy, my friends, requires courage.
And so I urge everyone to stand up and tap some steel in their back, including Republican members of Congress, and to let him know that there's more of us than there are of those in the White House, and that we together, unified, are more powerful than he is. And so that's why I'm urging everyone to raise their voice,
Attorneys General, you know, we've organized and we prepared and we anticipated the possibility of a Trump administration. You know, we stood up to him during Trump one, and now we are much more coordinated and organized. We've analyzed Project 2025, again, something that he said he knew nothing about, but this is straight out of Project 2025.
we've analyzed circuits all throughout this country we've analyzed jurisdiction venue and that's why after the birthright citizenship that executive order we were able to file suit within 48 hours we've continued to knock it out of the box and we are winning winning winning because again we believe in the rule of law we believe in the constitution
And we believe that the power of the purse belongs to Congress and not the president of the United States. And he cannot, with the stroke of a pen, or should I say Sharpie, basically ignore or dismiss or dismantle the rule of government. You've got to respect Congress and you've got to respect the Constitution and you've got to respect the constitutional order of our system.
And that's what we do each and every day. Nothing more and nothing less.
So the first case was birthright citizenship, which is in our 14th amendment, enshrined in the 14th amendment. And so he issued an executive order. And again, within 48 hours, we were able to get a temporary restraining order and then ultimately a preliminary injunction. Then he issued an executive order on behalf of OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, basically freezing funds
for a wide range of essential services all throughout the United States, including Meals on Wheels, Head Start, Social Security program initiatives and grants to veterans and law enforcement agents. All of these essential and critical services he sought to pause, again, because he wanted these agencies to to comply with his wishes.
And we were able to get a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Then we filed a case against the Treasury Department because Elon Musk and his ban of engineers gained access to our very private and sensitive information, our social security numbers, our insurance information, and our addresses, and we were able, we were successful there.
A number of agencies, including USAID, including Department of Defense, all of the federal agencies, we were able to get a preliminary injunction with respect to those cases. NIH, the National Institute of Health, was his other executive order, going after
um these institutions here in the state of new york some suny colleges who engage in groundbreaking groundbreaking expertise and groundbreaking scientific research to find cures to cancer and to find cures to parkinson's and heart disease and these
agencies, National Institute of Health gives grants to the University of Albany, the University of Buffalo, Stony Brook, and these are economic engines within these respective towns. We were able to get an executive order, we were able to get a temporary restraining order, and then we were able to get a preliminary injunction.
Then he filed an action against employees, probationary employees, and the law requires that the states be given 60 days notice, and they violated that. Again, executive order, and they dismissed, and they fired all these individuals. Again, we were successful. in court and getting a temporary restraining order and a hearing on that case is on Thursday.
There was a case with regards to grants for teachers to teach underserved communities and rural communities all throughout the state of New York and all around this country. And we, again, were able to seek a TRO, and that hearing is also on Thursday as well. We've also issued guidances to law enforcement and to hospitals that serve the LGBTQ community, again, focusing on gender-affirming care.
So the list goes on and on and on. Whenever he issues an executive order, it's the blue wall of defense, the attorneys general all across this country who responded in record time defending the rights of individuals, defending the rule of law and standing up for our democracy and for our freedom. And we'll continue to do that even with their threats and even
you know with all of their um you know the fact that they throw everything against the wall and see what's going to stick you know attorneys general um we're prepared to respond in record time what do you think of when uh you know given all of your legal experience and leading the top legal office in the state of new york when uh trump's doj lawyers
Listen, we've got the Administrative Procedure Act and most of the times they come into court and the decisions and the executive orders are arbitrary, they're capricious, they're not grounded in fact and draw the law. And there's just no evidence to substantiate what they are attempting to do. This is an attempt to remake government. That's what it is.
It's an attempt to remake our form of democracy and to turn this into an autocratic government, a unitarian type of government. And we've got to stand up and we've got to fight back. You know, a lot of the members of DOJ, like Danielle Sassoon, who submitted her resume at DOJ, you know, they're heroes and cheeros, individuals who stood up and said, we took an oath.
And a lot of the actions that this administration has taken is basically in violation of the law. And so I salute her for their courage. I salute them because they represent, in my mind, they are you know, individuals who were brave. And she, you know, led so many other like-minded members of DOJ, like-minded US attorneys who said, we just are not going to violate our code of ethics.
We're gonna follow the law. And we are going to depart from the Department of Justice. And it's unfortunate that more individuals in the Department of Justice don't do the same and just exit the Department of Justice. Because again, we all took an oath not to a king, but to the Constitution. And it's up to us to defend that right.
Showing 141–160 of 172 · page 8 of 9
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