Second grand jury refuses to indict Letitia James

Justice Department prosecutors have to please the president, but grand juries don't. A second panel assembled to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James has refused to do so, after last week's failed effort.

"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," James' attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement shared with Axios.
"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," he said. "Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice."

James convicted Trump on 34 felonies related to real estate fraud before his election win last year, and he has targeted her for retribution since. But the case against her, supposedly for misrepresenting the purpose of a second home in loan paperwork, is so weak that the first assigned prosecutor resigned rather than attempt to indict her, and all efforts since have likewise whiffed. At one point Trump was so frustrated that he publicly demanded U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi make James' prosecution happen. He appointed a personal attorney, Lindsey Halligan, to take the case, only for it to be dismissed by a Federal judge over the legality of her role.

Also canned was the case against former FBI Director James Comey, pursued on similarly thin grounds at Trump's ranting behest.

People keep suggesting that this is jury nullification, where jurors refuse to find against a defendant despite the case against them, but that implies that the defendant might otherwise expect to be convicted. In this case, the clear implication is that there is no case and prosecutors simply have nothing to show the panel. Not even a ham sandwich.