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Those in the dark included Attorney General Pam Bondi, people familiar with the matter said. The government shutdown, a rush to indict and internal divisions contributed to the lack of coordination.
Oct. 10, 2025, 6:32 p.m. ET
Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy were not given notice that a Trump-allied prosecutor in Virginia planned to indict Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, for bank fraud on Thursday afternoon, according to people familiar with the matter.
Their lack of awareness was a striking conclusion to weeks of fierce internal debate and drama over President Trump’s public demand that Ms. Bondi act quickly to deliver charges against Ms. James, who incurred the president’s wrath after bringing a civil case against him over his business practices.
The absence of coordination described by the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal department matters, was the result of several factors. Those included the government shutdown, a rush to bring an indictment against a Trump target over the objection of career prosecutors who had determined there was insufficient evidence, and divisions between department leaders and the Trump-installed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan.
Ms. Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, had been generally made aware of the effort by Ms. Halligan to secure an indictment against Ms. James, but were not told in advance that the effort would culminate in a grand jury vote on Thursday, these people said.
Among those surprised to learn the case was being argued before the grand jury on Thursday: Aakash Singh, an associate deputy attorney general who oversees the work of U.S. attorneys around the country, one of those people said.
Chad Gilmartin, a Justice Department spokesman, said he would not discuss grand jury matters. But he downplayed any divisions, saying the department was “united as one team.”
He added that Ms. Bondi, Mr. Blanche and their subordinates at department headquarters “continue to empower our U.S. attorneys to pursue justice in every case.”
Current and former Justice Department officials said that the way the James case played out behind closed doors suggested that the president, in his desire to exert control over who gets charged and when, could end up fracturing the department as law enforcement officials in various offices take directions from the White House.
“To an old Justice Department hand like me, it’s just appalling,” said Patrick J. Cotter, a lawyer in private practice in Chicago who once prosecuted the mafia boss John Gotti. “How could that happen? It is a result of the fact that what Trump has done is thrown away the organizational chart.”
A grand jury indicted Ms. James on Thursday on one count of bank fraud and a second count of filing a false statement to a financial institution. The indictment charged that Ms. James misrepresented how she planned to use a Norfolk home when she bought it in 2020, and that she did so to save $18,933 over the life of the loan.
Ms. James called those accusations “baseless,” adding that “the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.”
Before the indictment, career Justice Department lawyers had examined the facts and concluded the case was weak, with a significant prospect of failure at trial, according to people familiar with the matter. But Mr. Trump posted on social media last month that Ms. Bondi should file criminal charges quickly against Ms. James and others, and his view prevailed.
Mr. Trump’s first pick to be the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik S. Siebert, had told Justice Department leaders that a viable criminal case against Ms. James could not be brought, the people said.
After senior Justice Department officials relayed that view to the White House, Mr. Siebert was forced out, and the president replaced him with Ms. Halligan, a White House aide with no prosecutorial experience who nevertheless quickly racked up two major indictments sought by Mr. Trump, including one against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director.
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Besides Ms. Halligan, the James case had another key backer inside the department: Ed Martin, who has pursued Mr. Trump’s foes and championed his allies with such urgency that a critical number of Republicans in Congress opposed his selection to be the U.S. attorney in Washington.
Since that nomination was withdrawn, Mr. Martin has thrived in his role as pardon attorney and director of a task force established to seek retribution against Mr. Trump’s political enemies. He has his own robust line of communication to the president and other White House officials, and uses it regularly, according to people familiar with the matter.
On the morning of the James indictment, he posted on social media mischievously to hint at the charges that were about to be filed. After the case became public, Mr. Martin revisited his earlier post to add a thumbs-up emoji.
It is unusual for the Justice Department to make a criminal case out of a relatively small sum, but the president’s allies have argued that the case against Ms. James reflected the same basic premise of Ms. James’s civil case against him — that misstatements on financial paperwork for better loan terms must be punished.
A person familiar with Ms. James’s housing arrangements said the property had never been used as a rental and was occupied by Ms. James’s family members. There was no rental agreement, and Ms. James has continued to pay the mortgage, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Julie Tate and Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
