The Justice Department’s latest embarrassment in the Letitia James matter is impossible to ignore: two separate federal grand juries in Virginia have declined to return an indictment after prosecutors tried and failed to revive charges. This double rejection is not a trivial procedural hiccup; it is a glaring rebuke to an overreaching prosecution that many Americans rightly see as political theater rather than sober law enforcement.
The legal foundation for the earlier indictments was also knocked out from under prosecutors when a federal judge found the acting U.S. attorney who signed the original charges had exceeded the statutory 120-day appointment window. That ruling exposed sloppy, politically driven legal maneuvering and gave the grand juries further reason to pause before rubber-stamping what looks like a weak case.
Even some on the legal right are aghast at how clumsily the Justice Department has handled this matter. Veteran jurist Andrew Napolitano and conservative commentators have called the repeated failures “exceptionally rare” and, bluntly, humiliating for the DOJ — a stinging verdict for a department that should be above partisan score-settling. The message from these legal observers is clear: when prosecutors pursue headline-grabbing targets without a rock-solid case, the system itself is degraded.
Letitia James has denied wrongdoing and her team has labeled the prosecutions retaliatory, a characterization that rings louder when one considers the long political fight between her office and former President Trump and his allies. Americans deserve a Justice Department that follows evidence, not vendettas, and the repeated no-bills from grand juries suggest career jurors are not buying the narrative being peddled by political appointees. If this were about public safety or national security, the nation might tolerate aggressive tactics; but using federal power to settle political scores is unacceptable.
The cost of these missteps is real: taxpayer money wasted, the rule of law weakened, and public confidence in justice further eroded. Conservatives who champion law and order should be the first to call out prosecutorial malpractice when it appears, because a politicized courthouse hurts ordinary Americans far more than it ever hurts the powerful. The time has come for immediate reforms to prevent temporary appointees from wielding the full force of the federal government in highly charged political matters.
If Attorney General leadership insists on pursuing politically freighted cases, then they must at a minimum do it by the book: proper appointments, airtight evidence, and respect for the grand jury’s role as a check on prosecutorial excess. Otherwise the DOJ will continue to squander its legitimacy trying to score partisan points while real criminal enterprises go unaddressed. Conservatives should demand accountability and a return to prosecutorial restraint that protects both citizens and the Constitution.
The grand juries’ decisions are a vindication of citizen jurors and a rebuke to weaponized justice. Hardworking Americans expect their government to enforce laws fairly, not to be an instrument of retribution, and this episode should be a wake-up call to every patriot who still believes in equal justice under law.
