Letitia James indictment effort fails again, blow to Trump

Federal prosecutors on Thursday for the second time failed to convince a grand jury in Virginia to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on criminal charges, according to multiple reports.

The Department of Justice tried to obtain a new indictment of James over the past two weeks, after a federal judge dismissed the original indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia, charging her with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a mortgage. James denies any wrongdoing.

It is extremely unusual for a grand jury to refuse to issue an indictment after a prosecutor requests one.

James’ indictment and another one in the same district against former FBI Director James Comey were both tossed out after Judge Cameron Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan, the interim top prosecutor in the Eastern District, had been invalidly appointed to the post.

Halligan has presented the evidence against James and Comey to separate grand juries.

President Donald Trump had called for both James and Comey to be prosecuted. Halligan is his former personal lawyer.

James’ defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, in a statement said, “For the second time in seven days, the Department of Justice has failed in its clear attempt to fulfill President Trump’s political vendetta against Attorney General James.”

“This unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of day,” Lowell said. “Career prosecutors who knew better refused to bring it, and now two different grand juries in two different cities have refused to allow these baseless charges to be brought.”

“This case already has been a stain on this Department’s reputation and raises troubling questions about its integrity,” he said. “Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice.”

CNBC has requested comment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which had sought the indictment against James.

James has been a longtime antagonist of Trump’s.

A civil lawsuit filed by James against Trump, his company, and his adult sons led a New York state judge to rule that Trump and the Trump Organization were liable for business fraud, for misstating the true values of real estate assets for years, which grossly overstated his net worth.

A state appeals court in August tossed out the monetary fine against Trump and other defendants in the case, which had grown to more than $500 million. But the same court upheld the ruling that Trump engaged in business fraud.

The DOJ manual says, “Once a grand jury returns a no-bill or otherwise acts on the merits in…