By Alex Woodward

Copyright yahoo

A grand jury has voted to indict New York’s Democratic Attorney General Letitia James after Donald Trump demanded federal prosecutors criminally charge his longtime foe as part of a retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies.

The president nominated his personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia last month after he boasted of “firing” the district’s top prosecutor who resisted pressure from the administration to prosecute James and former FBI director James Comey.

Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience, presented a case against Comey days later, and she personally delivered evidence against James to a grand jury in Alexandria Thursday.

The grand jury has indicted James on a charge of bank fraud. No details about the case or evidence against her has been made publicly available. The Independent has requested comment from James’s office.

Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice — now filled with loyalists and attorneys to dominate agencies that the president claims were weaponized against him — are also targeting other prominent Democratic officials as well as progressive fundraising groups and an array of ideological opponents the administration alleges are tied to acts of terrorism.

Last month, in a post on Truth Social that was intended to be a private message to Bondi, Trump complained that “nothing is being done” against James, Comey, and Senator Adam Schiff, who are “all guilty as hell,” he said.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

James has long been a target of the president, whose sprawling business empire was the subject of a yearslong investigation and blockbuster judgment from a New York judge that found Trump and his associates illegally enriched themselves by defrauding banks and investors as part of a decade-long scheme to secure favorable financing terms for some of his brand-building properties.

In August, a state appeals court determined that the crushing financial verdict from New York Justice Arthur Engoron — which has ballooned to more than $515 million, with growing interest — was “excessive.”

But the court upheld Engoron’s findings that the president and his business partners committed brazen fraud — falling short of the vindication that the president sought through the courts to save him.

Bill Pulte, the chair of the Federal Housing Finance Authority, accused James of falsifying documents and property records relating to homes she owns in New York, New Jersey and Virginia to obtain lower mortgage rates — ironically nearly the exact same thing a judge determined Trump and his business associates did with multiple properties. The Justice Department has confirmed an open investigation against James based on the allegations.

But that case was effectively frozen after career prosecutors reportedly told officials that they did not possess sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

That blockage appeared to frustrated the president, who then urged “Pam” to bring a case without “delay” hours before nominating Halligan as the top prosecutor in Alexandria.

The bar for securing an indictment from a grand jury is far lower than securing a unanimous conviction at trial, though prosecutors are generally instructed to only bring a case they believe is supported by evidence to obtain a conviction.

This is a developing story