'No shame': Trump admin under fire after failed bid to indict foe

News that a grand jury declined to indict one of President Donald Trump's political foes on Thursday set off a firestorm of reactions from legal analysts and court watchers.

A grand jury on Thursday refused to return an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James for alleged bank fraud and lying to a financial institution. It was the second time lawyers from Trump's administration failed to indict James for those crimes.

The first case was tossed out by a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia after they found Trump's hand-picked prosecutor for the case, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally serving as an interim U.S. attorney.

Legal experts and court watchers reacted to the news on social media.

"There is no shame in this administration," MS Now legal analyst Frank Figliuzzi posted on Bluesky.

"The refusal of a grand jury to indict Letitia James on mortgage fraud creates a fascinating setup for a similar allegation against Fed Gov Lisa Cook," CNBC reporter Steve Liesman posted on Bluesky. "Imagine if SCOTUS, which will hear the case on January 21, says Trump had the right to fire Cook but a grand jury wouldn’t even indict on the crime?"

"A bad case is a bad case," former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter posted on X.

"By law, the Department of Justice CAN go to another grand jury and try again," former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman posted on Bluseky. "But even if they succeed (a big IF in this case), the DOJ will have handed Letitia James even more evidence for her vindictive prosecution motion to dismiss the charges. And that motion was already quite strong."

"The grand jury’s refusal to indict AG Letitia James is a clear rebuke of using the justice system for political revenge," Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Governance, posted on X.