New York Attorney General Letitia James joins Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul, elected officials and activists at an Aug. 12, 2026, New York City briefing opposing what they described as federal ICE overreach. (Photo by Lev Radin/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images).
A federal judge in New York has handed Attorney General Letitia James a significant win, dismissing a lawsuit filed by the far-right, anti-immigrant website VDARE that accused her office of politically motivated retaliation.
In a 26-page memorandum decision and order issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino threw out the case in its entirety. D’Agostino, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found that VDARE had improperly asked a federal court to intervene in an ongoing state enforcement matter, triggering dismissal under the Younger abstention doctrine.
“Simply put, Plaintiff seeks declaratory and injunctive relief that would cause this Court to interfere with the ongoing Civil Enforcement Action,” D’Agostino wrote.
The VDARE Foundation filed suit in the Northern District of New York in June 2025. It alleged that subpoenas from James’ office seeking records on its finances, corporate governance and regulatory compliance violated its First Amendment and equal-protection rights.
“VDARE engages in political speech at the very heart of First Amendment protection: it criticizes government policy that appears to demonstrate incompetence and even outright dishonesty,” the complaint stated. “James and the several attorneys in her office seek to crush this criticism through the abuse of state power.”
In December 2025, the organization sought a temporary restraining order that would have effectively barred James from pursuing regulatory action while the federal case remained pending. The request came months after James, in September 2025, launched a state civil enforcement case accusing VDARE’s owners of looting company assets and diverting donor money to purchase a castle in West Virginia.
D’Agostino declined to expedite consideration of the requested injunction the day after VDARE filed it.
The judge also cautioned VDARE that several legal principles appeared likely to undermine its claims, noting that both the disputed subpoenas and the state enforcement case were “akin to a criminal prosecution.”
Still, D’Agostino initially permitted the litigation to continue and authorized James’ office to submit a combined motion seeking dismissal of the case and opposing VDARE’s bid for injunctive relief.
In January, James filed that 38-page omnibus motion.
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“This action asserts constitutional claims of retaliation, selective enforcement, and conspiracy against Defendants following [the attorney general’s] lawful investigation of, and subsequent legal action initiated against, VDARE,” the motion to dismiss reads.
To hear James tell it, VDARE was aiming for “a third bite at the apple on the matter of retaliatory animus and targeting” after previously suing and losing to James in federal court in 2022 and unsuccessfully challenging subpoenas in Empire State court in 2024.
Now, D’Agostino has decided the issues emphatically in James’ favor.
“In sum, the Civil Enforcement Action was initiated to sanction Plaintiff,” the order reads. “Defendant James initiated the action pursuant to her statutory authority (as the Attorney General routinely does), and there was an investigation which culminated in the filing of the formal complaint in the Civil Enforcement Action.”
The judge says a federal “[i]ntrusion” into the state’s efforts “unduly interferes” with “legitimate activities” and can also “readily be interpreted as reflecting negatively upon the state courts’ ability to enforce constitutional principles.”
The court also had harsh words for VDARE’s arguments, calling them “both factually incorrect and legally meritless.”
Specifically, D’Agostino chastises the group for how its complaint “broadly alleges injuries suffered as a result of a conspiracy-laced investigation and abuse of process.”
But ultimately, none of the merits arguments mattered — except insofar as what those arguments concern at a basic level.
And, to that end, the judge saw no reason to give VDARE a chance to make better arguments.
“Because the defects in Plaintiff’s complaint—i.e. that Plaintiff improperly seeks this Court’s intervention in ongoing state court proceedings—cannot be cured with an amendment, the Court declines to grant Plaintiff leave to amend,” the opinion goes on.
The post Letitia James beats ‘factually incorrect and legally meritless’ challenge from far-right website over civil enforcement subpoenas and alleged administrative harassment first appeared on Law & Crime.