December7, 202051○ James hasfiledmorethan
35 lawsuits againsttheTrump
administrationthisyear,leading
the charge againstitsattemptsto
disenfranchiseminoritiesandother
voters.
The Brooklyn-bredlawyer,whoin
2018 became thefirstBlackAmerican
and the first womanelectedtothe
role for the state,hada busysum-
mer. In September,Jamesleda group
of local governmentsthatwantedto
stop the 2020censusfromending
early after theadministrationsought
to move up thedeadlineforcollect-
ing results. (TheU.S.SupremeCourt
ruled againstthe coalition, which
civil rights advocatessaywillleadto
an undercountingof urbanminori-
ties.) Earlier, inAugust,shealleged
fraud and corruptionattheNational
Rifle Association—charteredinNew
York in 1871—claimingthatmembers
used funds forprivatejetsandfamily
trips; the NRAcountersued,saying
James had misusedherofficefor
political purposes.
That same month she fought
back against attemptstohobblethe
U.S. Postal Servicebeforea rushof
pandemic-induced mail-inballots,
heading a suitagainstTrump and
his postmastergeneralthataimed,
in part, to stopthedismantlingof
mail-sorting machines.InOctober
a federal judgeorderedthePostal
Service to restore the machines
at any facilities thatcouldn’tpro-
cess first-classelectionmailquickly
enough. —CristinFlanagan
LETITIA JAMES
NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL
ALAN HOWARD
CO-FOUNDER,BREVANHOWARD
ASSETMANAGEMENTLONDON ○ As the
coronavirus pandemic sent
global markets into a tailspin,
the hedge fund manager
traded his way to a 100% gain
in investor cash, by far the
best among peers.
Traders like Howard place bets on macro
trends, reading which way economies will
turn and then wagering on everything from
interest rates to stocks to currencies. His
specialty is rates trading using borrowed
money, which allows him to take bigger
risks to achieve outsize returns.
That’s about all that’s known about
the highly secretive dealings of the BrevanHoward AH Master Fund—other than that
the “AH” are Howard’s initials. It’s not clear
precisely what moves he made to double
investor cash in the first four months of
2020, when peers returned a little less than
3% on average, according to Bloomberg’s
index of macro hedge funds, of which the
AH Master Fund is not part. It’s also unclear
how his fund has performed since April.
(One clue: Brevan Howard’s main fund,
which invests in the AH Master Fund, was
up almost 23% through October.) But this
fall he began raising $500 million based on
his success earlier this year.
The moneymaking spree has marked
one of the most profitable phases of
Howard’s career since he co-founded his
company almost two decades ago, a dra-
matic change in fortunes after years of
mediocre returns. —Nishant KumarI James’s favorite book is Simple Justice by Richard Kluger