DOJ fails once more to get grand jury to indict New York AG Letitia James, a Trump goal


New York Lawyer Common Letitia James speaks to the media, after she attended a listening to and pleaded not responsible to costs that she defrauded her mortgage lender, exterior the U.S. District Courtroom for the Japanese District of Virginia, in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S., Oct. 24, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Federal prosecutors on Thursday for the second time didn’t persuade a grand jury in Virginia to re-indict New York Lawyer Common Letitia James on felony costs, in line with a number of experiences.

The Division of Justice tried to acquire a brand new indictment of James over the previous two weeks, after a federal choose dismissed the unique indictment within the Japanese District of Virginia, charging her with financial institution fraud and making false statements to a monetary establishment in reference to a mortgage.

This can be very uncommon for a grand jury to refuse to concern an indictment after a prosecutor requests one.

James’ indictment and one other one in the identical district in opposition to former FBI Director James Comey had been each tossed out after Choose Cameron Currie dominated that Lindsey Halligan, the interim prime prosecutor within the Japanese District, had been invalidly appointed to the submit.

Halligan has offered the proof in opposition to James and Comey to separate grand juries.

President Donald Trump had referred to as for each James and Comey to be prosecuted. Halligan is his former private lawyer.

James’ protection lawyer, Abbe Lowell, in an announcement stated, “For the second time in seven days, the Division of Justice has failed in its clear try to satisfy President Trump’s political vendetta in opposition to Lawyer Common James.”

“This unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case ought to by no means have seen the sunshine of day,” Lowell stated. “Profession prosecutors who knew higher refused to convey it, and now two totally different grand juries in two totally different cities have refused to permit these baseless costs to be introduced.”

“This case already has been a stain on this Division’s popularity and raises troubling questions on its integrity,” he stated. “Any additional try and revive these discredited costs could be a mockery of our system of justice.”

Learn extra CNBC politics protection

CNBC has requested remark from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Virginia, which had sought the indictment in opposition to James.

The DOJ handbook says, “As soon as a grand jury returns a no-bill or in any other case acts on the deserves in declining to return an indictment, the identical matter ( i.e., the identical transaction or occasion and the identical putative defendant) shouldn’t be offered to a different grand jury or resubmitted to the identical grand jury with out first securing the approval of the accountable United States Lawyer.”

That is growing information. Verify again for updates.