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A grand jury has declined for a second time to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, refusing to resurrect a mortgage fraud prosecution encouraged by President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the matter. It’s a another major blow to the Justice Department after the dismissal of earlier charges against James and another longtime Trump foe, former FBI Director James Comey, in a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to prosecute the president’s political opponents. James says the case is politically motivated and has denied any wrongdoing. The person who confirmed the failure to secure an indictment was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The clock is ticking for the U.S. government to open up its files on Jeffrey Epstein. After months of rancor and recriminations, Congress has passed and President Donald Trump has signed legislation compelling the Justice Department to give the public everything it has on Epstein. And it has to be done before Christmas. A federal judge on Tuesday said the department could release grand jury transcripts and other documents from the sex trafficking case brought against Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. And last week another judge said the department could release transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Epstein’s abuse of underage girls in Florida.

NEW YORK (AP) — The clock is ticking for the U.S. government to open up its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

The Justice Department has failed to secure a new indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James after a judge dismissed the previous mortgage fraud prosecution encouraged by President Donald Trump. That's according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Prosecutors went back to a grand jury in Virginia after a judge’s ruling halting the prosecution of James and another longtime Trump foe, former FBI Director James Comey, on the grounds that the U.S. attorney who presented the cases was illegally appointed. The Justice Department could go back to the grand jury to try again.

The Trump-appointed prosecutor overseeing the James Comey case is insisting in a new court filing that the full grand jury approved the final indictment against the former FBI director. She is reversing course from statements a day earlier that defense lawyers had seized on to ask for a dismissal. The latest statements from Lindsey Halligan, the hastily named interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, represent an attempt to backtrack on earlier comments the prosecution team made under persistent questioning from a judge about the seemingly jumbled process leading to the return of the two-count indictment.