Two recent reports should make New Yorkers take a closer look at Attorney General Letitia James and her office. One report covers serious allegations from an Assistant Attorney General on her team. The other looks at the results of New York’s police accountability efforts after George Floyd’s death and questions whether promised reforms for Black communities have made a real difference. While these stories focus on different topics, together they reveal a bigger issue: New York often talks about accountability but has trouble making it happen.
For years, James has presented herself as one of New York’s strongest advocates for accountability. Her office has investigated politicians, corporations, police departments, and other powerful groups. She has often shown she is willing to use the Attorney General’s broad investigative powers. But accountability should not be something government officials expect only from others. Sooner or later, those in charge must also be open to questions about their own actions.
An Assistant Attorney General Sounds the Alarm
The first Times Union report should concern every New Yorker regardless of political affiliation. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Wiesenfeld reportedly sent an email to more than 2,000 employees inside the Attorney General’s Office making serious allegations about prosecutorial decision-making within the agency. According to the reporting, Wiesenfeld alleged that his supervisor, Investor Protection Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe, directed him to pursue matters involving Donald Trump, Truth Social, and Hewlett Packard without what Wiesenfeld considered a credible reason to target them.
These claims have not been proven, and it’s important to note that the reporting does not show that James herself gave Wiesenfeld those orders. His claims are about instructions he says came from his supervisor. Still, this does not make the accusations unimportant. An Assistant Attorney General is questioning how investigative targets were chosen in one of New York’s most powerful law enforcement agencies, and that alone deserves a thorough, independent review.
The main accusation challenges the idea of equal justice. Law enforcement should find evidence of wrongdoing first and then follow where it leads. The government should not pick a person or group to investigate and then look for reasons to justify it. This rule should not change just because Donald Trump is involved. If you take Trump out of the picture and imagine a prosecutor being told to investigate a Black-owned business or civil rights group without good reason, Black leaders would want to know who approved it, what evidence there was, and if power was misused. We should ask the same questions in this case.
The Email Raises Even More Questions
The Times Union reports that Wiesenfeld’s email was quickly deleted from the Attorney General Office’s computer system after it was sent out. Later, James’ general counsel told staff that the issue was an internal matter and that no one in the office was at risk. No matter the reason for deleting the email, removing it from inboxes does not address the serious claims it raised.
New Yorkers have a right to know who decided to delete the email, why that choice was made, and if the original message and related records were kept. More importantly, we need to find out if other prosecutors got similar instructions, how investigative targets were chosen, and what evidence supports or challenges Wiesenfeld’s claims. These questions all lead to the key issue: What did Attorney General Letitia James know, when did she learn about it, and what did she do after these claims came up?
Asking this is not the same as accusing anyone of wrongdoing. It’s the kind of question James’ own office would ask if another agency’s leaders were under investigation. The Attorney General cannot expect strict accountability from others while asking New Yorkers to accept less when her own office faces questions.
A Second Report Exposes New York’s Police-Accountability Problem
The second Times Union investigation examined what happened to New York’s promises of police reform following the murder of George Floyd. In 2020, millions of Americans marched, New York politicians held press conferences, task forces were created, and municipalities were required to develop police-reform plans. Civilian oversight became a central part of the discussion because communities were repeatedly told that police departments could not be expected to police themselves.
Years later, the Times Union looked at 173 local governments with police forces in the Capital Region and Hudson Valley to see what happened to those promises. Twenty-four towns or cities suggested creating civilian oversight boards or similar groups, and thirteen already had some kind of oversight. The investigation found that at least eight governments never set up the boards they promised. For five others, there was no public information showing if their boards were ever created.
Even in places that did set up civilian oversight, the power of these boards is very different. Some can investigate complaints on their own, while others only review cases already handled by the police. Some can suggest discipline or use subpoenas, but others have much less authority. This difference is important because just calling something a “civilian review board” does not mean it truly provides independent oversight. We should judge government by what these boards can actually do, not just by their names.
The Attorney General’s Own Police-Accountability Record Deserves Scrutiny
The Times Union’s broader examination of police reform also looked at the New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation, which investigates deaths involving police and correction officers. According to the newspaper, the office has reviewed nearly 1,400 cases. Of the 142 civilian-death investigations it had completed, 11 resulted in prosecutions, and 7 resulted in convictions.
These numbers alone do not prove that prosecutors failed. Police use-of-force cases are complicated and involve tough legal standards, including New York’s justification laws. Prosecutors also have a duty not to file charges just because people want them to. Still, these numbers should be looked at closely because Black communities were often told that independent investigations would lead to more accountability and trust in the system.
The real question is not just how many people were prosecuted. We should ask if investigations became more independent and open, if families got better explanations, if there were useful recommendations when charges could not be filed, and if those suggestions led to real changes in police policy. These results show if the reforms worked. The government should not get credit just for creating a new office or writing another report.
The Jarrel Garris Case Is a Prime Example
The handling of Jarrel Garris’ death in New Rochelle is a prime example of the gap between Attorney General Letitia James’ rhetoric on police accountability and measurable reform. After Garris, a 37-year-old Black man, was shot following an encounter that began with an allegation involving food taken from a grocery store, James’ Office of Special Investigation declined criminal charges. Yet her own office acknowledged that the encounter raised serious policy questions and recommended that New Rochelle change its training and policies for petty, nonviolent offenses. OSI specifically said officers should consider whether someone is experiencing a mental-health crisis, whether nonviolent de-escalation has been exhausted, and whether physical force is actually necessary. Her office went so far as to recognize that an officer’s decision about whether to use physical force in circumstances like these could mean the difference between life and death.
But that raises an even bigger accountability question for Attorney General James: what changed after the recommendation? James’ office has repeatedly recommended better mental-health crisis training—not only after Garris, but following other fatal police encounters—and as recently as 2026 was still calling for all New York law-enforcement agencies to implement written crisis-response policies and improve training. The Attorney General does not personally control every police department’s training curriculum; statewide standards are principally developed through MPTC and DCJS. But as New York’s attorney general and the official whose Office of Special Investigation repeatedly examines these deaths, James should be asked what she did to turn her office’s recommendations into measurable statewide reform. What specific model policies did her office propose? What training standards did it push state policymakers to adopt? Which recommendations were actually implemented by departments? How did her office track compliance? And after the death of Jarrel Garris, did James ever determine whether New Rochelle implemented the very reforms her investigators recommended? Accountability cannot simply mean investigating a Black man’s death, issuing recommendations, closing the case, and waiting for the next tragedy.
Police Cannot Police Themselves, But Prosecutors Can?
This is where the two Times Union stories come together. For years, a main idea behind police reform has been that police departments should not be the only ones to judge their own officers. This idea led to civilian review boards, independent investigations, and calls for more openness. If this principle is valid, New York should apply it just as firmly when serious claims are made about prosecutors.
Who takes an independent look at claims of politically motivated prosecution? Who checks how the Attorney General’s Office chooses its investigative targets? Who decides if prosecutors started with evidence and followed it to a person, or if they picked a person first and then looked for evidence? Most importantly, who investigates the Attorney General’s Office when serious claims are made about it? New York cannot base its police reform on independent accountability and then object when people ask for the same level of review for prosecutors.
Prosecutors have a lot of power. They can issue subpoenas, look into financial records, require documents, start civil actions, and launch investigations that can damage reputations even before anything is proven in court. This power may be needed to enforce the law, but it still needs checks and balances. The more the government can affect someone’s life or reputation, the more important it is to use that power fairly.
Black Political Representation Cannot Replace Accountability.
There is another difficult part of this discussion that Black New Yorkers need to face. Letitia James is a Black woman in one of the most powerful elected law enforcement roles in the country. Her success should be recognized, but her identity should not make her office immune to tough questions. Black journalists should feel free to question Black politicians, and Black elected officials should not be shielded from criticism just because it might be uncomfortable.
For too long, Black politics has sometimes mixed up representation with real results. Having a Black leader in charge does not automatically mean an institution is accountable to Black communities. We should judge our elected officials by the same questions we ask of any public servant: What did you promise? What did you achieve? How did you use your power? Who benefited from your decisions? What were the real results, and are you willing to be held to the same standards you expect from others?
Criticizing a Black elected official is not automatically anti-Black, just as avoiding criticism is not always pro-Black. Independent Black media should examine those in power without acting as a PR team for any party or politician. Our duty is to our readers and communities, not to making politicians comfortable.
Who Polices the Prosecutors?
Together, these two stories reveal more than just questions about one Attorney General’s future. They show that New York still struggles with accountability. After 2020, communities were promised big changes in police reform, but years later, some oversight boards were never created and others have different levels of power. Meanwhile, an Assistant Attorney General has raised serious concerns about how decisions are made in the state’s top legal office.
Attorney General Letitia James has spent years calling for accountability from powerful people and organizations. Now that serious questions are being asked about her own office, she should accept the same level of scrutiny. Her office should keep all records, explain how investigations are handled, respond directly to the claims, and support a fair, independent review to find out what really happened. If the claims are false, an outside review can show that. If there was wrongdoing, New Yorkers should know who was involved and how serious it was.
Black New Yorkers especially should see why this principle is important. History shows what can happen when government agencies gain too much power without enough oversight. The power we accept when it is used against someone we dislike today could be used against our own communities in the future. That’s why accountability should not depend on party, personality, or race.
No one who holds government power should be free from real scrutiny. That includes police officers, chiefs, prosecutors, governors, mayors, and the Attorney General of New York. If New York truly believes that institutions should not oversee themselves, then it’s time to ask the question we often avoid: Who polices the prosecutors?
