The Trump Justice Department is not backing off New York Attorney General Letitia James, even after back to back blows in federal court.
According to multiple reports, senior Justice Department officials are weighing whether to take a third shot at charging James with mortgage fraud, only days after a grand jury in Virginia refused to bring a fresh indictment and just two weeks after a judge threw out the original case because Trump’s handpicked prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed.
In Norfolk last week, Justice Department lawyers went back to a grand jury with a reworked case that accused James of lying to a lender about how she planned to use a home she bought in 2020. The new panel, presented with the government’s evidence, simply said no.
It’s the latest setback in the bid to prosecute a longtime Trump foe, the Associated Press noted, in a proceeding that normally favors prosecutors. Grand juries almost always return indictments when the government asks. As one old saying has it, a determined prosecutor could “indict a ham sandwich.”
James has insisted from day one that the case is political payback for her civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his business empire. After the grand jury’s rejection, she said in a statement, “It is time for this unchecked weaponization of our justice system to stop.”
Her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, urged the department to walk away, warning that another attempt would be seen as an attack on the rule of law. He said the case “should be the end” of the prosecution and added that pressing on would be viewed as a blow to the justice system’s integrity.
Inside the department, however, officials are still looking for a way forward. Democracy Docket reported that “the DOJ may again try to bring charges sometime in the future,” per MS NOW, with Reuters also writing “prosecutors intend to seek a new indictment.”
Prosecutors allege that James misled lenders about a Norfolk house, calling it a second home while later renting it out, and in doing so secured a better interest rate, saving under twenty thousand dollars in borrowing costs.
What has made the case explosive is not the size of the mortgage, but the way it came to be. The original indictment, filed in October, was driven by Halligan, a former Trump defense lawyer with no prosecutorial experience whom the president installed as interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia after forcing out a veteran prosecutor who had resisted bringing charges against Trump’s enemies.
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled last month that Halligan’s appointment violated federal law and tossed the indictments against both James and former FBI Director James Comey. Halligan’s retroactive designation as a “special attorney” could not salvage the cases, the judge wrote.
Rather than retreat, Justice Department leaders sent a new team back to a grand jury to try again on James alone. That effort failed on Thursday, according to AP and other outlets, when jurors declined to indict.
If the department pushes for a third attempt, it would enter legally and politically risky territory. James’s lawyers have already accused the government of “vindictive prosecution” and “outrageous government conduct,” arguing that Trump is using federal prosecutors as a weapon against a state official who won a massive civil judgment against him.
