Reports that New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is considering a run to replace the embattled Mayor Adams throws into sharp relief the stakes of her legal pursuit of President Trump — which could be set for a reversal.   

The possibility of Ms. James mounting a bid for City Hall comes amidst a blizzard of crises for Mr. Adams and his administration, which has been afflicted with mounting attrition. The mayor has been charged with federal bribery and campaign finance offenses.

The precariousness of the Adams administration has started a game of chess involving a Who’s Who of New York’s power players, who, as is typical of the Big Apple, all seem to hate each other. Bad blood flows freely among Ms. James, Governor Cuomo, Trump, and Governor Hochul. 

Ms. James, who campaigned for attorney general on a promise to go after Trump, could reckon that now is her time after a year in which she secured, if it stands up on appeal, a triumph in court that could bring the business empire of Trump, who has called her “corrupt” among many other imprecations, to its knees.    

Word that Ms. James and her long-time nemesis, Mr. Cuomo, among others, are eyeing Gracie Mansion came first from the New York Times. The Gray Lady hedges that Ms. James’s “decision is far from assured and is not imminent; some close to her stressed her ambivalence, if not reluctance.” Ms. James led the civil sexual misconduct investigation against Mr. Cuomo that precipitated his resignation, and he dislikes her for that and other reasons. 

Now, Mr. Cuomo, who was accused of making female staff members uncomfortable, groping them and trying to kiss them, is suing Ms. James for access to relevant records and claims she launched a “one-sided, deeply flawed ambush of Governor Cuomo, who denies having sexually harassed anyone.” A criminal complaint against Mr. Cuomo for groping was dropped by the district attorney of Albany in 2022. 

If Ms. James does declare, the spotlight would swivel to her landmark victory over the 45th president — a $455 million verdict in which Trump, his sons, and officers of the Trump Organization were held liable for civil fraud by Justice Arthur Engoron. Justice Engoron also imposed restrictions on the ability of the Trumps to do business in New York. He installed an independent monitor to chaperone the Trump Organization.

The judge was so persuaded of Trump’s liability that he determined before trial that the former president committed fraud by falsely inflating the value of his assets. He also imposed a gag order on Trump for comments calling the judge’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, “Schumer’s girlfriend,” referring to the Senate majority leader. 

The verdict was a signature win for Ms. James. She had campaigned for district attorney by declaring her intent to shine a “bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing, demanding truthfulness at every turn.” After her victory, Trump noted that she “openly campaigned on a GET TRUMP agenda,” and that she did “little else but rant, rave & politic against” him. 

After Justice Engoron handed down his ruling, Ms. James declared that while Trump “may have authored the ‘Art of the Deal,’ our case revealed that his business was based on the art of the steal.” She trumpeted her role in ensuring that he “is finally facing accountability for his lying, cheating, and staggering fraud.”

That $455 million penalty — more with interest — could be ephemeral. Trump has appealed the verdict to New York’s first court of appeals, the Appellate Division First Department. Last month, Justice Peter Moulton of that tribunal ventured that the “immense penalty in this case is troubling.” The Sun’s Marie Pohl reports that “several of the appeals court judges appeared skeptical of the verdict.”

Of particular concern to Ms. James could be the appellate judges’ apparent sympathy to the position that, as one of them put it, Trump’s “misrepresentations” on the financial statements “almost entirely concerned subjective evaluations of properties and businesses.” There also appeared to be some sympathy for the position that the penalty imposed on Trump ought to be lessened because, as one judge put it, the case resembled less a sprawling fraudulent scheme than “a commercial dispute.”

Ms. James is no stranger to high-profile litigation reversals. In May, a unanimous Supreme Court — in an opinion authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor — ruled that Ms. James “violated the First Amendment by coercing regulated entities to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy.”

A paring down of Justice Engoron’s verdict — or even an overruling of it — would rob Ms. James of campaigning on this body blow to New York’s most famous resident. While no one would anoint Trump as the most popular New Yorker, recent polling indicates that his approval rating beats that of Governor Hochul, who’s been flailing since she pulled the plug at the eleventh hour on a congestion pricing plan and personally welcomed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on one of their visits to the city.

That could be behind a statement from one of Mr. Cuomo’s consiglieres, Rich Azzopardi. Mr. Azzopardi accuses the governor of “clearly trying to manipulate the situation to avoid Tish James running against her for governor, and based on her poll numbers I get it. At this rate, Trump could run against her and win.”