President Donald Trump said on Friday, October 2, 2026, that he feels "badly" for the seven former Cornell University fraternity members accused of gang-raping a classmate, after New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the case. Speaking to reporters outside the White House before departing for a rally in Alabama, Trump called James "a corrupt person" and predicted the accused men "won't get a fair shake."
What Trump Said
"Letitia James is a corrupt person. She's totally corrupt, and I can't imagine it," Trump told reporters. "And I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won't get a fair shake." On Truth Social the same day, he questioned Hochul's decision: "Why would the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, appoint a Corrupt Prosecutor, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James, to represent the State in the highly controversial Cornell University rape case?" James is a longtime Trump adversary — her office brought the 2022 civil fraud case against Trump and his business, which produced a $454 million judgment later overturned on appeal.
The Case: What Is Alleged
The men, known as the "Cornell 7," are defendants in a civil lawsuit filed in September 2026 by a woman using the pseudonym "Jane Doe." She alleges that seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity drugged and sexually assaulted her at the fraternity house in October 2024, when she was 20. According to the suit, she initially consented to sexual contact with two men she knew while intoxicated, but alleges she was then drugged — the complaint references pressure to take ketamine — and assaulted by multiple men while incapacitated. The lawsuit, which also names Cornell University and the fraternity, reportedly includes screenshots from a Snapchat group allegedly discussing the assault. Attorneys for several of the men have publicly denied criminal wrongdoing. None of the seven has been criminally charged.
How the Investigation Was Revived
Jane Doe reported the incident to Cornell University police and Title IX investigators shortly after it happened, and to the campus health clinic. The Tompkins County district attorney declined to file charges after reviewing what he described as a six-page summary from campus police. He has since acknowledged his office did not independently investigate and never interviewed the woman — and said he never received full transcripts of her interview with campus police, in which she stated she was "100 percent" certain she had been raped.
After the civil filing surfaced new material, the DA reopened the criminal investigation on September 28 and said the matter will go to a grand jury. Days later, Hochul signed an executive order transferring the case to James, saying the district attorney had not done the "bare minimum" and declaring, "I will not allow anyone to sweep this case under the rug." James announced an active criminal investigation "guided by the facts and the law." Cornell suspended the seven accused students and the Chi Phi chapter — two of the men were expelled — and president Michael Kotlikoff called the allegations "deeply disturbing," announcing an independent outside review of the university's handling.
The Fallout
On CNN's State of the Union on October 4, Jane Doe's attorney Thomas Giuffra rejected Trump's remarks: "I think to politicize something like this is just wrong. There are Republicans whose daughters are getting assaulted. There are Democrats whose daughters are getting assaulted. It has nothing to do with politics." Giuffra also said his client — and other women mistakenly believed to be Jane Doe — have received threats. The case has drawn wider attention, with public figures including Olivia Rodrigo and Florence Pugh commenting on it.
The takeaway: a reopened criminal probe, a special prosecutor with a fraught history with the president, and a presidential intervention have turned the Cornell case into one of the most politically charged sexual-assault investigations in the country. With a grand jury ahead and none of the accused criminally charged, the facts — and the politics — are still developing.
Watch: President Trump's remarks on the Cornell 7 investigation
Reel music: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources: New York Post, USA Today, NPR / KNKX, People