State Attorney General Letitia James hasn\u2019t been on a debate stage in eight years, having opted not to debate Republican opponent Michael Henry in 2022.<\/p>\n
But when she squares off against Saritha Komatireddy on Thursday night, she\u2019ll have more than two decades of experience in politics to draw from.<\/p>\n
Elected to the City Council in 2003, she\u2019s since participated in numerous debates in races for public advocate and attorney general.<\/p>\n
Komatireddy, meanwhile, is a longtime federal prosecutor making her first run for public office. She has repeatedly bashed James for not doing more to combat crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is a far-left radical, a politician who cares more about setting criminals free than protecting New Yorkers,\u201d Komatireddy said at the state Republican convention in February.<\/p>\n
James has dismissed that criticism, including in an interview with Spectrum News last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that my opponent doesn\u2019t understand the responsibility and the role of the New York state attorney general,\u201d she said. \u201cOur office primarily focuses on civil investigations and not criminal investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, James has been involved in dozens of civil actions against President Donald Trump and his administration. It’s perhaps little surprise, then, that Trump has backed Komatireddy.<\/p>\n
\u201cLetitia James is essentially a dirty cop,\u201d Trump said at a Long Island rally in August. \u201cAnd you have a person running who I just met today for the first time and I\u2019ve endorsed her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Komatireddy said James has pursued a personal vendetta against Trump and is too focused on national politics.\u00a0She\u2019s also promised to address severe mental illness, another likely area of contention on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m running for New York attorney general to make sure that New York is safe, to prosecute crime, prosecute fraud and take the homeless off the streets,\u201d she told NY1 during an interview in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to do the work of the People\u2019s Lawyer, and I urge everyone to tune in to your debate,” James said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State Attorney General Letitia James hasn\u2019t been on a debate stage in eight years, having opted not to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109,116,25,3284,9,24,55,54,49,12,56,112,108,87,27,200],"class_list":["post-367359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bobby-cuza","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}