New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks to the media, after she attended a hearing and pleaded not guilty to charges that she defrauded her mortgage lender, outside the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S., Oct. 24, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Federal prosecutors on Thursday again 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 has tried at least twice 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.
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.
The Department of Justice’s manual says, “Once a grand jury returns a no-bill or otherwise acts on the merits in declining to return an indictment, the same matter ( i.e., the same transaction or event and the same putative defendant) should not be presented to another grand jury or resubmitted to the same grand jury without first securing the approval of the responsible United States Attorney.”
CNBC has requested comment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which had sought the indictment against James.
This is developing news. Check back for updates.
