Among state Attorney General Tish James’ other misadventures are her headline-hunting “consumer protection” suits that are anything but.
Page A14From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
New York Post publishes three attacks on Attorney General James in one edition, one about blocking a merger.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what happened here, because the coverage has gotten sloppy. Attorney General Letitia James is being scrutinized today, appropriately, across three separate pieces in one publication, and I want to walk through why that scrutiny is warranted and not, as some have suggested, a pile-on.
First, there's the matter of her turning what one columnist accurately calls an 'evil eye' toward the former President while allegedly maintaining a 'blind eye' to crime in New York. That's a serious charge and it deserves — actually, hold on, I should say it's a characterization, not a charge, there's no indictment attached to that sentence, I want to be precise about that.…
…(cont) Second, and this is the part that actually matters, James and California's Bonta are blocking the Nexstar-Tegna merger. Now, opponents are calling this a 'war on local news,' which, look, when two of the largest station groups in the country try to combine into one company that would own local news outlets in something like eighty percent of American households, and the state's top law enforcement officers say no — I mean, that's not a war on local news, that's the opposite of — okay. That one's not landing the way I want it to.
Third, we've got 'abuses of power laid bare' from a 'top prosecutor' who 'blows the whistle.' I haven't independently verified who this whistleblower is or what exactly was blown, but the headline does a lot of the work here, and that's fine, that's how the format functions.
Here's my actual position, stripped down: when three columns in one publication converge on one official on one day, that is not evidence of anything except that three columns converged on one official on one day. It is entirely possible — likely, even — that an Attorney General doing her job, including a job that involves saying no to a station-count merger the size of Nexstar-Tegna, generates exactly this kind of coverage from outlets that would prefer she'd said yes. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm saying it's possible. I'm going to stop talking now.
“Three different writers, same paper, same day, same target — that's not journalism, that's a coordinated hit, and the actual 'crime' they're mad about is her blocking a media merger. Follow whose column benefits when local news stations get bought up by one company, and it isn't yours.”
“Look, these are independent editorial judgments from independent columnists who independently concluded, on the same day, in the same paper, that the Attorney General is corrupt for blocking a merger that — well, that would've been good for the paper's parent company's competitors, but that's not — I withdraw that. It's about local news. It's purely about local news.”
The receipts
Tish James had proved herself a rancid political hack before Daniel Wiesenfeld blew the whistle; let’s hope she’s soon out of government if not in prison.
Regardless of what you think of the president, it’s undeniable that AG James' Trump derangement has damaged New York, and she does not deserve another term.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.