Grand jury declines to indict Letitia James for second time in a week
A federal grand jury in Virginia has declined to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud, for the second time in a week.
Such a rare decision by a grand jury marks another blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to prosecute his political foes.
Last month, a judge dismissed the federal case against James, a Democrat, after finding a prosecutor appointed by Trump, a Republican, was not in the post legally.
James, who brought a civil fraud case against Trump last year, said the federal case was politically motivated. Prosecutors say she committed bank fraud and made false statements to a financial institution.
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported the grand jury had declined to sign off on an indictment, citing an unnamed official.
Grand juries, made up of members of the public, decide if there is enough evidence to take a case to court.
In legal terms, a grand jury determines whether probable cause exists to believe a crime has been committed. It does not decide guilt or innocence.
Data show how rare it is for grand juries to decline a prosecutor’s request to indict a suspect.
In 2016, federal prosecutors investigated more than 150,000 people, and grand juries declined to file charges in only six cases, according to CBS.
The federal government had alleged that James lied when she bought a three-bedroom home in the city of Norfolk, Virginia, with a mortgage loan that required her to use the property as her secondary residence.
The “misrepresentation” allowed James to obtain favourable loan terms that would not have been available for an investment property, prosecutors claimed.
Another grand jury, seated in Norfolk, declined to press charges last week.
The grand jury that met on Thursday was in Alexandria, a suburb of Washington DC.
A lawyer for James said the decision by two different grand juries in two separate cities was proof that the case “should never have seen the light of day”.
Lawyer Abbe Lowell called the prosecution “a stain on this Department’s reputation” and that any “further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice”.
The justice department has not commented.
As top lawyer for the state of New York, James brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, in 2022.
Trump was later found liable of falsifying records to secure better loan deals, leading to a $500m (£380m) fine.
The penalty was thrown out by an appeals court, which called it excessive, although it upheld that Trump was liable for fraud.
Trump’s allies called that case politically motivated, noting that when James, a Democrat, ran for office as New York attorney general in 2018, she promised to sue him, and called him an “illegitimate president”.
In November, a federal judge dismissed the criminal cases against James and former FBI Director James Comey, who was accused of lying to Congress.
James and Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017, are not the only adversaries of the president to have faced federal charges.
Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, is currently charged with sending and wilfully retaining national defence information.
By BBC News