Federal Grand Jury Declines to Re-Indict NY Attorney General Letitia James on Mortgage Fraud Charges
A federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, on Thursday, December 4, 2025, rejected a second attempt by the Department of Justice to secure an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James on charges of bank and mortgage fraud. The decision is a significant setback for the administration’s highly publicized push to prosecute one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent political adversaries.
The development comes just over a week after U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed the initial October indictment against Ms. James. Judge Currie ruled that the prosecutor who brought the charges, then-Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed by the Attorney General after her term of service under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act had expired. While the judge dismissed the charges “without prejudice,” allowing the Justice Department to seek a new indictment with a validly appointed prosecutor, the grand jury’s refusal to approve the new charges now complicates the path forward for the administration.
Ms. James, who has strongly denied the mortgage fraud allegations and categorized the case as politically motivated “retribution” for her office’s successful civil fraud lawsuit against Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, has repeatedly stated her confidence in the justice system. The Justice Department, which had also seen its case against former FBI Director James Comey dismissed on the same grounds of unlawful appointment, has not yet commented on whether it will attempt to present the case to a third grand jury. The ongoing legal saga is viewed by legal analysts as a major challenge to the legitimacy of the unorthodox methods the administration has used to install U.S. Attorneys in various districts across the country who are unlikely to gain Senate confirmation.
