Grand Jury Says No to Reindicting Letitia James

A federal grand jury in Virginia on Thursday voted against reindicting New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage fraud charges, delivering another setback to the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute her. The decision comes a week after a judge dismissed the initial indictment, ruling that Lindsey Halligan, a Trump lawyer who was rushed into a federal prosecutor role, did not have the authority to present the case to a grand jury. But there's no law against the Justice Department trying for a third time to indict James, and an official familiar with the case suggested to the Washington Post that that could happen.

The Justice Department is pursuing other cases against James. On Thursday, lawyers representing James were in court in New York concerning a civil rights investigation into her work as the state's attorney general. That judge also raised doubts about whether the Trump administration had lawfully installed the interim US attorney handling that case, per the New York Times—an issue increasingly complicating President Trump's attempts at revenge against political opponents.