By Sarah N. Lynch and Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – A federal grand jury was meeting on Thursday to consider a second set of criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, a source familiar with the matter said, after a judge threw out an initial set of charges against the prominent antagonist of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The indictment marks the Justice Department’s second attempt to prosecute James, an elected Democrat, after a previous case was dismissed in November when a judge found that the prosecutor who secured the indictment was unlawfully appointed.
The revived case shows the Justice Department under Trump plans to continue pursuing figures who have criticized the Republican president or led investigations into him, despite previous legal stumbles.
It was not immediately clear whether the prosecutor who secured the initial indictment, Lindsey Halligan, was still involved in the case. The judge who dismissed that case, Cameron McGowan Currie, gave the Justice Department an opportunity to seek a new indictment under a different prosecutor.
JAMES, COMEY, BOLTON WERE CHARGED
James is one of three high-profile Trump antagonists hit with federal criminal charges in recent months, along with former FBI Director James Comey and John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser.
Currie also dismissed the case against Comey, which was led by Halligan, ruling that her appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was impermissible.
Bolton has pleaded not guilty to federal charges brought in Maryland.
The renewed case against James is likely to revive other challenges she made to the initial indictment, including that the case was a vindictive prosecution brought at Trump’s behest and that Trump administration officials violated her legal rights in conducting the probe.
James pleaded not guilty to charges of bank fraud and lying to a financial institution for allegedly misleading on mortgage documents to secure more favorable loan terms.
She had brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his family business, which resulted in a more than $450 million penalty after a judge found in 2024 that Trump fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders.
Trump, who campaigned in part on a vow of retribution, has for years railed against James and called for her prosecution, claiming the case was brought to damage him politically.
A New York state appeals court in August threw out the penalty, which had grown to more than half a billion dollars with interest, but upheld the trial judge’s finding that Trump was liable for fraud.
Both Trump and James’ office are appealing to the state’s highest court.
(Writing by Andy Sullivan; editing by Scott Malone, Rod Nickel)
