ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A grand jury declined for a second time in a week to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday in another major blow to the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute the president’s political opponents.
The repeated failures amounted to a stunning rebuke of prosecutors’ bid to resurrect a criminal case President Donald Trump pressured them to bring, and hinted at a growing public leeriness of the administration’s retribution campaign.
A grand jury rejection is an unusual circumstance in any case, but is especially stinging for a Justice Department that has been steadfast in its determination to seek revenge against Trump foes like James and former FBI Director James Comey. On separate occasions, citizens have heard the government’s evidence against James and have come away underwhelmed, unwilling to rubber-stamp what prosecutors have attempted to portray as a clear-cut criminal case.
A judge threw out the original indictments against James and Comey in November, ruling that the prosecutor who presented to the grand jury, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The Justice Department asked a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, to return an indictment Thursday after a different grand jury in Norfolk last week refused to do so. The failure to secure an indictment was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
It was not immediately clear Thursday whether prosecutors would try for a third time to seek a new indictment. One of the people familiar with the matter said prosecutors were still evaluating next steps and stood behind the charges.
A lawyer for James, who has denied any wrongdoing, said the “unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of day.”
“This case already has been a stain on this Department’s reputation and raises troubling questions about its integrity,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice.”
James, a Democrat who infuriated Trump after his first term with a lawsuit alleging that he built his business empire on lies about his wealth, was initially charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a home purchase in 2020.
During the sale, she signed a standard document called a “second home rider” in which she agreed to keep the property primarily for her “personal use and enjoyment for at least one year,” unless the lender agreed otherwise. Rather than using the home as a second residence, prosecutors say James rented it out to a family of three, allowing her to obtain favorable loan terms not available for investment properties.
Both the James and Comey cases were brought shortly after the administration installed Halligan, a former Trump lawyer with no prior prosecutorial experience, as U.S. attorney amid public calls from the president to take action against his political opponents.
But U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie threw out the cases last month over the unconventional mechanism that the Trump administration employed to appoint Halligan. The judge dismissed them without prejudice, allowing the Justice Department to try to file the charges again.
Halligan had been named as a replacement for Erik Siebert, a veteran prosecutor in the office and interim U.S. attorney who resigned in September amid Trump administration pressure to file charges against both Comey and James. He stepped aside after Trump told reporters he wanted Siebert “out.”
The White House is moving forward with the formal confirmation process for Halligan, and she recently returned her nominee questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which vets all U.S. attorney picks. But her nomination faces significant procedural obstacles.
James’ lawyers separately argued the case was a vindictive prosecution brought to punish the Trump critic who spent years investigating and suing the Republican president and won a staggering judgment in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements. The fine was later tossed out by a higher court, but both sides are appealing.
Comey was separately charged with lying to Congress in 2020. Another federal judge has complicated the Justice Department’s efforts to seek a new indictment against Comey, temporarily barring prosecutors from accessing computer files belonging to Daniel Richman, a close Comey friend and Columbia University law professor whom prosecutors see as a central player in any potential case against the former FBI director.
Prosecutors moved Tuesday to quash that order, calling Richman’s request for the return of his files a “strategic tool to obstruct the investigation and potential prosecution.” They said the judge had overstepped her bounds by ordering Richman’s property returned to him and said the ruling had impeded their ability to proceed with a case against Comey.
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Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Eric Tucker and Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed.