Prosecutors in Washington failed to secure indictments in at least three cases over the past two weeks. This trend shows the Justice Department is struggling with grand juries. A federal judge said it was "self-evident" that prosecutors are now so scared of grand jurors they use new ways to charge.

In the past two weeks, prosecutors in the capital have failed to secure indictments in at least three cases, an acceleration of the problems the Justice Department has had with grand juries.

There was a time not too long ago when a federal prosecutor could spend a long career in the courtroom and never once fail to get a grand jury to sign off on an indictment.

But that time is over, especially in President Trump's Washington.

In the past two weeks alone, prosecutors there have failed to secure indictments in at least three cases -- an extraordinary acceleration of the troubles that the Justice Department, and the U.S. attorney's office in Washington in particular, has had with grand juries for nearly two years.

The latest failure came on Friday, when prosecutors were unable, for the second time in recent days, to obtain an indictment against someone the authorities claimed had voted in two jurisdictions in the 2024 election, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The grand jury rejections have typically come in cases based on questionable evidence that prosecutors have nonetheless sought to jam through the courts, often because they involve public figures whom Mr. Trump has perceived to be his enemies. But they have also touched on some of the president's other obsessions, including his contentious immigration crackdown and his efforts to prove that widespread voter fraud exists.

Things have gotten bad enough that a federal magistrate judge who once worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office publicly called out the Justice Department's failures last week. It was "self-evident," he said, that his former colleagues had become so petrified of grand jurors in Washington that they had started using unorthodox methods to get around them in an effort to bring charges.

The problems for prosecutors have increasingly extended beyond grand juries, as U.S. attorney's offices in Washington and elsewhere have faced a forceful pushback from the federal bench.

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.