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NY AG Letitia James In Court For Mortgage Fraud Case; Tropical Storm Melissa. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 24, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Any minute, New York Attorney General Letitia James expected to arrive at court for her first court appearance since facing federal indictment from Donald Trump's hand picked US attorney. Plus, Tropical Storm Melissa set to become a Category 4 hurricane this week and it's already caused deadly flooding and landslides. Where it is headed and where the threat is next.

And Sara sits down with Ben Stiller for a conversation about his new documentary. I'm Kate Bolduan. With that, Sara Sidner, John Berman is out today. This is CNN News Central.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In just a couple of hours, New York Attorney General Letitia James will enter a courtroom as a defendant for her first appearance since being indicted. Today, James' legal team is expected to ask the judge to dismiss the case outright. In their court filing, James lawyers cite the unlawful appointment of President Trump's hand-picked prosecutor Lindsey Halligan.

She was appointed after the sitting US attorney was fired after the President publicly called on the Justice Department to target a few of his political enemies. The charges against Leticia James came after the unprecedented indictment of former FBI Director James Comey who is also using a similar legal argument to have his case thrown out.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is joining us now. What are you expecting to see today?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, this will be the first time that the New York Attorney General Letitia James has to go to a federal courthouse in Norfolk, Virginia to face the charges that have been levied by the Justice Department and taken through a grand jury in the federal court in Virginia.

Letitia James, she will have the opportunity at this hearing to enter her initial pleading which we do expect fully to be not guilty. And she also will be told what her charges are here. They are related to alleged financial false statements.

And the major allegation here that the Justice Department is levying is that, they're saying Letitia James benefited about $18,000. She got $18,000 she shouldn't have by saying something false on bank applications. That $18,000, that is over the life of a mortgage that she got for a house that is in the Norfolk area that she bought five years ago.

So we're not going to get to the meat of the case today, though, really. Sara, one of the things that is going to be discussed in court is what happens next. How is James team going to be challenging this case? We already know that they want to challenge the authority of the prosecutor here, Lindsey Halligan, the attorney -- former personal attorney of Donald Trump, who was sent into the Eastern District of Virginia's US Attorney's Office to lead it, and then very quickly helped that office essentially by herself, secure these indictments against James Comey and then Letitia James.

And then the other thing we're going to hear about today is about Lindsey Halligan contacting a journalist over the messaging app Signal. One of the things there that James team wants is they want an order from the court saying that the prosecutors around this, including Lindsey Halligan herself, should not be allowed to make what are called extrajudicial statements.

They shouldn't be allowed to talk to the media. And if they do, they should have to record how much they're talking. This is the sort of thing that is typically expected in a case like this. But because of those Signal chats, James's team is really bearing down on Halligan here. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes. The Signal shots so very surprising in a case like this. Thank you so much, Katelyn Polantz. I appreciate your reporting this morning. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. Joining us right now to talk about this and what's about to play out. We're keeping an eye, of course, to wait for Letitia James to arrive, but joining us right now is Nick Ackerman, the Assistant Special Watergate Prosecutor, former Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District. And also with us is Tom Dupree, the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Guys, thank you so much for being here.

So, Nick, what should, in your view, people focus on when kind of watching this first step take place today?

NICK AKERMAN, ASSISTANT SPECIAL WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: Well, there's nothing that's really going to happen in this first step. What we really ought to be focusing on is this indictment, which is completely bogus. I've had a chance to look at the indictment here. I've had a chance to look at the underlying mortgage document. [09:05:12]

And the only crime that's been committed here is by Lindsey Halligan and Donald Trump, and maybe others, who essentially brought out a criminal indictment that they know is false, and was done just for the purpose of using government resources and judicial resources to go after Donald Trump's political enemies. And I say this because the key element of this indictment, paragraph 6, charges that Letitia James didn't represented she'd be living in the house and that she would not rent it.

Well, that is all false because if you look at the actual underlying document, what they did is they cherry picked out of it to take certain words. They don't put in the fact that she is allowed to rent on a temporary basis. They don't put in the fact that she doesn't have to live there, she just has to be available to live there.

That is the language. They've completely taken the language to make up criminal charges here, which is a crime. And this is the same thing they did with James Comey. So you've got a pattern here of making up criminal charges to go after your political enemies. That is not something I think the court is going to put up with.

BOLDUAN: Tom, one of the steps that we're seeing that we are expecting that James's legal team to take right away is to go out -- not asking for the case to be dismissed, challenging the appointment of Lindsey Halligan. Do you think it's likely that challenge work?

That is not what is supposed to happen to Tom Dupree. Well, we'll we work on that. Tom says no, thank you, Kate, for that question.

Nick, you get that question. What do you think of this move? Do you think it is likely that this challenge -- how likely is this challenge will succeed?

AKERMAN: Oh, I think it's likely that the challenge will succeed. It looks like it's going to succeed in the Third Circuit. And I think it's even more serious than that. I think there's a chance here that the judges might decide to appoint special counsel to determine whether there has actually been a crime on the court here, that they have the right under Supreme Court decisions to appoint a special counsel to do an investigation and to actually prosecute somebody who commits a crime on the court.

BOLDUAN: Take this other element. Katelyn Polantz was talking about it as well, that James is asking also -- going to be asking the court to prohibit anyone involved, especially the prosecutors, from talking to the press. Especially after the text messages that were revealed of Lindsey Halligan.

Is this a thing? Wouldn't they be told not to talk anyway?

AKERMAN: Of course they shouldn't do that. I mean, that's just basic, you know --

BOLDUAN: So what's the point of -- is it just to reinforce it? AKERMAN: Well, especially when you have somebody like Lindsey

Halligan, who's never tried a criminal case, knows nothing about criminal law, knows nothing about prosecution. I mean, that's somebody you've got to put a tight rein on because she has absolutely no idea what she's doing.

If you look at those text messages, they're the most bizarre set of messages I've ever read in my life.

BOLDUAN: You would not have done that if you --

AKERMAN: Not even close. Not even close. And it didn't say anything other than the fact you have to ask yourself, why did Lindsey Halligan even send a text message to this reporter in the first instance? None of that makes any sense.

BOLDUAN: Tom Dupree has decided to join us once again. It's good to have you backed up. Sorry for the technical glitch.

I'm very curious, your -- just as I was just going back and forth with Nick on kind of the elements of what could happen today. What do you -- what is your focus? What's your big question? What do you think this eventually turns on?

TOM DUPREE, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Sure. I think the most important thing today is to see the judge's reaction to these arguments. Judges often, even when they're not ruling, they will give a signal as to whether or not in their mind, certain arguments have legs.

One of the issues that's going to be teed up today, as were discussing, is whether Halligan's appointment was impermissible and unlawful. The judge might give a sense of how they view the issue. The other thing that could happen is the judge could say, I'm going to send this decision to that court in South Carolina that's already been designated to hear Jim Comey's challenge to Halligan's appointment.

That's one thing to look at. The other is to see whether or not the judge is offended who by the comments that the administration or that Halligan herself has been making in the press. If the judge gets -- if the prosecutors get off on the wrong foot with this judge, that could be a very telling Signal as to how this entire case could unfold.

BOLDUAN: Tom, how big of a factor is Donald Trump in this case? Not today. I'm just saying going forward, how big of a factor does he become?

[09:10:04]

DUPREE: He is a huge factor. He is a looming dominant factor in this entire prosecution. Look, judges and jurors read the newspapers. They follow TV, they follow the media, they know what's going on. They are going to be aware at a general level of the background of this case, how this prosecution was essentially directed by Donald Trump.

Trump is not going to be in the courtroom, he's not going to be a witness in this case, but his presence looms over this entire proceeding. So I do think the judge, the jurors, all of it, will be well aware of the role that Donald Trump has played to get this court case in this court.

BOLDUAN: Yes. First things first. Let's get into court. That's where Letitia James will be arriving very soon. We will watch and find out what happens in there.

Nick, thank you for being here. It's great to see you. Tom, thanks for joining us, albeit delayed, just kidding. Thank you so much, Tom. I really appreciate it. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate. Breaking news this morning, Canadian officials not backing down after President Trump said he was cutting off all trade talks with the country. Now, the reason for that, an ad released by the government of Ontario that uses words from this Ronald Reagan address in 1987 to criticize tariffs. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America's jobs and growth are at stake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Ad misstated facts and he accused Canada of trying to influence an upcoming Supreme Court case on tariffs. But within the last hour, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, responded by posting this. "Canada and the United States are friends, neighbors and allies. President Ronald Reagan knew that we are stronger together."

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House. This fight is escalating here now that we've heard from Mr. Ford about President Trump cutting off the talks, cutting off the ability to sort of change his mind with Canada.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And we are still waiting to hear, we should note from the prime minister, Mark Carney, but definitely this is an escalation that could have big damages for one of the United States biggest trading partners. Actually, Canada's the US' second biggest trading partner.

And this message came in a note from the President overnight. He's been putting posting about it in several different posts this morning as well. And you mentioned this, but he part of this was he was arguing that it could threaten the Supreme Court decision. Currently the Supreme Court is looking and considering cases related to the President's tariffs.

This is what he posted last night. He said, "Tariffs are very important to the national security and economy of the USA based on their egregious behavior, all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated." And then this morning in another post, he wrote, "Canada cheated and got caught. Canada has long cheated on tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400 percent. Now they and other countries can't take advantage of the US any longer." He added, "Thank you to the Ronald Reagan foundation for exposing this fraud."

So clearly you can see the President arguing that the use the Canada's use of this ad and airing Reagan's speech, he called it fake. He said it's a fraud. I do think the context of this, of course, though, is so important.

It is unclear, you know, I should say the ad and the speech that they used, the part of the speech, it was edited, but it's unclear how they misrepresented what Reagan was saying because this related to a 1987 address that Reagan gave. It came as he was imposing tariffs on Japan because of the cheap, you know, semiconductors that Japan was sending into the United States. It was threatening the United States manufacturing.

But what Reagan made clear in that speech, Sara, was that he was loathing to put these tariffs on Japan. It really was that entire speech kind of more so a full-throated support of free and fair trade. And to take a step back, I think it's important as well to just look at the big picture of how the relationship between the United States and Canada has changed ever since Donald Trump came into office for his second term.

It was worse, we should note, in the first few months of his second term when the former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was still in office, they did not get along well this time around. Things started to appear better though when Carney came into office in the spring.

They were, you know, they just met in the Oval Office actually earlier this month. They've met several times since Carney was elected. But what's unclear now is how this is going to change that relationship, of course, and what this could mean for the economic situation both in Canada, but of course in here in the United States as well.

SIDNER: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you so much for your reporting there from the White House on this Friday morning.

[09:15:00]

Ahead, hidden cameras, X-ray, poker tables and high tech glasses that can see through playing cards, the new details we're learning about that multimillion dollar gambling scandal rocking the NBA. Plus, smash and dash, thieves take sledgehammers to slot machines. All of it caught on camera. That story ahead as well.

Also, Tropical Storm Melissa hovering over the Caribbean and only expected to become a major hurricane this weekend. Why the storm could be a worst case scenario for some.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:09] BOLDUAN: This morning, Jamaica is bracing for impact and what could be

catastrophic days long storm coming ahead. Tropical Storm Melissa is what we're talking about. It has already killed three people in Haiti and could become a Category 4 hurricane this weekend. CNN's Allison Chinchar back with us tracking this storm.

What is the latest update and what should people be preparing for?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. So the real key here is the incredibly slow movement with this and the problems that is going to cause. So we take a look at this. Tropical Storm Melissa is currently moving east southwest. It's actually moving a little bit backwards from where it was yesterday.

And at 1 mph, just for some perspective, that is the top speed of a sloth, one mile per hour. And the humans can actually walk at roughly about 3 mph to 4 mph. So we could walk faster than this storm is currently going. Now, the concern is because of how slow the movement actually is, is going to give it a lot of time to dump a tremendous amount of rain.

Again here, you can kind of see it will continue to jog a little bit to the north, then over to the west before then finally being pulled up and off into the Atlantic Ocean. Now here's one thing to note. It is expected to get stronger as it moves farther off to the west. We anticipate this will become a hurricane this weekend and even a major hurricane by the latter half of the weekend.

The model still, there's still a lot of discrepancy exact when it makes that northward turn. And this is key because the farther west it can go, the stronger it can likely get because it's going to be entering very, very warm sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean Sea. And we all know that is fuel for these types of storms.

So the concern here is that how strong can it actually get before it makes that northward turn? Also too, it's had a little bit of some wind shear to encounter the last 24 to 48 hours. But that is going to be changing as we head into the weekend.

Without that wind shear, that too will also allow the storm to strengthen over the next couple of days. But by far the biggest impact from this particular storm is certainly going to be the rainfall not just for Jamaica, but portions of southern and western Haiti, also portions of western Cuba.

You're looking at widespread totals of 10 to 15 inches. But some spots could pick up as much as 20 inches of rain.

BOLDUAN: Allison, thank you so much for that update. Really appreciate it. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate. This morning, the explosive NBA gambling scandal overshadowing the start of the season. Two of the teams affected by the investigation will be in action tonight, but a lot of people will be talking about this. More than 30 people have been arrested in the case that prosecutors say involves rigged poker games, insider sports betting and mafia tie. CNN's Brynn Gingras is here. This is also sort of involving a coach and former player that everyone knows and --

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chauncey Billups.

SIDNER: And a player --

GINGRAS: Yes.

SIDNER: -- currently not going to be playing tonight, but currently at the NBA.

GINGRAS: Yes. Both of them are on leave from their separate teams while the NBA is doing its own sort of look into these indictments. Let's talk about first that poker scheme that everyone kind of is baffled by because of the technology that was used.

That one allegedly involved Chauncey Billups, the current coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, obviously an NBA Hall of Famer. What authorities are alleging in these court paperwork is really that they would lure in people who are called fish, victims essentially, into these poker games that happened in Miami, in the Hamptons, in New York City, run by the criminal enterprises of the mafia in some cases, or at least people who are associated with the Mafia, according to the paperwork.

And basically say, hey, you want a chance to play poker with Chauncey Billups next to you? Come on and play. And what they would do is they'd completely rig that whole poker game. The only person who didn't know it was rigged was of course, the victim.

And like I said, they used all of this high technology. We're talking about contact lenses that could read the inside of the cards, tables that had X-ray machines in them so that they could read the cards from the bottom. In some cases they would have an off site person who would basically tell the players at the table, hey, hit your poker chips, the colored ones.

Make sure that person loses. We don't want to lose him, that sort of thing. So there's all this sort of inside action that was happening according to this paperwork. So real in depth stuff.

And that's allegedly what Chauncey Billups has been tied up in as long as Damon Jones. He's another one. Of course, he's a confidant of LeBron James, played for the Cavaliers for many years, was an assistant coach. So he's also charged in this indictment.

The other indictment that we learned about is this, you know, insider trading as Kash Patel, the FBI director talked about of the NBA. And that involves Terry Rozier, current player for the Miami Heat, a guard. He was arrested just after his game on Wednesday night, on Thursday morning. And essentially, what they're alleging here is that he was giving people inside information about injury reports who wasn't going to play that night.

Sometimes in some cases, they alleged he would take himself out of the game in order to win bets, which, of course, this is a big headache for the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver. This is something they're going to have to look into. It's been an issue for a long time. This doesn't make it any better.

SIDNER: Yes. And Terry Rozier's attorney has spoken out saying absolutely not guilty of this.

GINGRAS: Going to fight --

SIDNER: Yes. We're going to fight the charges. Thank you so much, Brynn.

GINGRAS: All right.

SIDNER: Appreciate it. Kate?

[09:25:08]

BOLDUAN: Nearly a thousand flight delays already this morning and a new warning for travelers. It is going -- they are mounting and is going to get worse as the government shutdown drags on. We have a new report coming in for you.

And live pictures we're going to show you of the demolition of the East Wing at the White House. The work continues as President Trump is pushing ahead with the construction of that big new ballroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, US PRESIDENT: I'm very good at building ballrooms. I build beautiful ballrooms.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)