President Donald Trump has expressed sympathy for the seven men who have been accused of drugging and gang-raping a classmate at Cornell University.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has appointed Attorney General Letitia James, who previously prosecuted Trump and the Trump Organization for civil fraud, as a special prosecutor to oversee a reopened criminal case.
Learning of James’ involvement set the 80-year-old president off.
“Letitia James is a corrupt person,” Trump said in a Friday press gaggle.
“She’s totally corrupt, and I can’t imagine it. And I feel badly for whoever she’s looking at because they won’t get a fair shake. Letitia James is a corrupt person.”
The comments came as the reopened Cornell rape investigation erupted into the national spotlight this week when the woman at the center of it, identified only as Jane Doe, filed a civil lawsuit against seven former members of the Chi Phi fraternity, Cornell, and others.
She alleges that she was plied with alcohol and drugs, became incapacitated, and was sexually assaulted by multiple fraternity members over several hours.
The lawsuit included screenshots of a Snapchat group in which fraternity members allegedly discussed the assault and encouraged others to participate.
The allegations triggered a new wave of scrutiny because investigators had originally closed the criminal investigation without charges in 2024.
But new documents released this week raised questions about how the case was handled—including a transcript in which the woman told Cornell police she was “100 percent” certain she had been raped—information that Hochul said was not properly conveyed to prosecutors.
James was appointed on Friday after Hochul removed the local district attorney who had been overseeing the case, saying she had lost confidence in the handling of the investigation.
But the Democrat has been one of the president’s biggest adversaries since she ran for New York attorney general in 2018, and one of the most hated law enforcement figures among Trump’s MAGA base.
James successfully sued Trump in 2022 while he was campaigning for the White House, accusing him of lying about his real estate empire and inflating the value of his properties for financial gain.
He was subsequently fined more than $300 million, but later appealed the case.
The president’s latest comments also stand out against his decades-long record on high-profile sexual assault cases.
In 1989, after five Black and Hispanic teenagers were arrested in the Central Park jogger case, Trump spent money on full-page newspaper ads demanding the return of the death penalty while the case was still unfolding.
The five were later exonerated, but Trump continued to defend his position decades later and declined to apologize.
Kelsie Taggart, Vice President at American Bridge 21st Century, hit out at the president’s comments.
“For decades, Donald Trump has rushed to defend men accused of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment, from Roy Moore to Brett Kavanaugh to his own Secretary of Defense, while smearing and mocking the women brave enough to come forward,” she told the Daily Beast.
“Trump has never concerned himself with getting justice for victims of sexual assault, not his own victims, not Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, and not Jane Doe at Cornell. Instead, he’s shown repeatedly that the only thing that matters to him is himself and the power of those around him.”
