The Republican candidate running against New York Attorney General Letitia James for her role as the state’s chief law enforcer accused the Democrat incumbent of abusing the powers of her office and “playing politics with the law” in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
Saritha Komatireddy, a former prosecutor and national security expert who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, won the New York Republican State Committee’s endorsement last week.
Acknowledging the far left’s success in New York City’s recent mayoral election, Komatireddy emphasized just how important it is for Americans nationwide to pay attention to this race.
“First of all, New York is sort of America’s city. A lot of folks who came to this country, like my parents, they came to New York,” the married mom of four said during a Tuesday interview.
According to the AG hopeful, people all across the country should be concerned for the wellbeing and future of New York City and the state overall because this particular race against James is “really about the things that are fundamental to the rule of law.”
“It’s about making sure that we have an attorney general who is focused on actually keeping people safe, not on playing politics with the law and advancing a far left ideological agenda that doesn’t actually serve the safety of people,” Komatireddy said.
James, who has served as New York AG since 2019, has an embattled history of using her office to go after President Donald Trump. More recently, she was in legal hot water herself after getting hit with mortgage fraud charges.
As Breitbart News reported last fall:
On October 9, James was indicted by a Virginia grand jury in a case related to a mortgage she took out on a home in Virginia. According to the indictment, to receive more favorable mortgage rates, James claimed the Virginia home would be used as her second home. Mortgage rates are higher for those who intend to rent the property out, which is what James appears to be doing.
The case was later dropped, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) initially vowing to appeal, but “ultimately decided to seek a new, untainted indictment against James,” a source told NBC News.
Komatireddy says James is guilty of overseeing a dramatic rise in crime across the state while spending her time focusing on her personal and political foes.
Referring to her experience as federal prosecutor, chief of staff in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and one-time judicial nominee of Trump, she said, “While I was focused on federal crimes like terrorism and international drug trafficking, I saw firsthand that safety here in New York, across the city and across the state, deteriorated in the years that Letitia James has been in charge.”
“New York State has seen a 26 percent rise in crime. Crime is up 26 percent,” she continued. “In those same years, more than a million people have left New York. So the population is down and crime is up — that is the definition of failure.”
What New Yorkers really need, she says, is an attorney general who is actually focused on prosecuting crime and getting homeless and sick individuals “off the streets in a compassionate and humane way.”
She also stressed the need for a prosecutor who would “eliminate the corruption and fraud we see in state government that has built up over time, over years and years of one party rule in the state.”
When asked if she feels like an “underdog” for going up against an incumbent Democrat who is a household name, Komatireddy replied, “Not at all, because she’s a household name for all the wrong reasons.”
“She is bad at her job,” she argued. “She has abused the powers of that office, used it for the wrong reasons, and people are tired of it. They want good government in New York.”
The Republican added that she believes it is “very apparent that [James] has used that office to go after her political enemies and for her own political purposes.”
“She’s more focused on press releases that play to her far left radical base than actually doing things that help New Yorkers. She doesn’t even talk about crime, she doesn’t even talk about public safety. All she focuses on is an ideological agenda that makes the state more dangerous and more expensive.”
Komatireddy was also asked about scenarios like the prosecution of Daniel Penny, the young Marine veteran who was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway car in 2023.
That instance is an example of “what’s wrong in our state,” she said.
“It’s not safe in our state, and when you have a government that is failing to keep people safe instead of actually taking steps to prosecute criminals — like I said, bring the homeless and the sick off the streets and off the subways into places of real care — instead of doing those things, they’re blaming Good Samaritans for for trying to fill the void.”
After being prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Penny faced a maximum possible sentence of 15 years in prison on a second-degree manslaughter charge, which was dropped, and four years on the negligent homicide charge if found guilty.
“That actually highlights the failure of Alvin Bragg, the failure of Leticia James — and that’s exactly what we’re running to change,” Komatireddy said. “If the government is doing its job. citizens can ride the subway safely, can walk down the street safely, can drive down the highway safely, and not worry about being victimized by crime.”
The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which endorsed Komatireddy in her November fight against James, also spoke exclusively with Breitbart News.
“Saritha is a unicorn,” said RAGA executive director Adam Piper. “Saritha is the type of candidate most committees dream of having run. She’s the type of person who can be doing anything she wants to, and she decided to put her time, talent, and treasure into this long shot race.”
Blasting James in comparison, Piper said the current AG is “really the epitome of everything wrong with the woke, dangerous left that is for cash bail and more crime on the streets.”
Acknowledging that the Republican candidate has a steep hill to climb to beat the progressive incumbent, especially after New York City just elected far-left socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Piper said, “We have seen underdogs and long shots win before — we see it happening with the Olympic Games right now.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.