The Justice Department took the extremely rare step on Tuesday of notifying a federal judge it would disregard a court order.

Specifically, the judge presiding over the government's criminal bank fraud case against New York Attorney General Letitia James ordered federal prosecutors to provide discovery on James' motion to dismiss the case on vindictive prosecution grounds.

But in a brief filing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Keller told the court that wouldn't be happening.

"The Government provides notice of its intent not to provide vindictive/selective prosecution-related discovery prior to Defendant’s motion because the law does not 'allow[ ] a defendant to have discovery on the government’s prosecutorial decisions [until] the defendant ... overcome[s] a significant barrier by advancing objective evidence tending to show the existence of prosecutorial misconduct. The standard is a ‘rigorous’ one.' Wilson, 262 F.3d at 315 (quoting Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 468)," said the filing. "Until Defendant meets her threshold requirements, the Court’s instruction to produce any vindictive/selective prosecution-related discovery is premature."

Legal experts were taken aback at this response to a federal judge.

"Unusual filing in Tish James case," wrote Politico legal analyst Josh Gerstein on X. "DOJ says it isn't complying with judge's order to turn over discovery on selective prosecution issue. Usual procedure would be move to reconsider the order but prosecutors file 'notice' telling judge no."

This comes after Trump's acting U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, has made a number of other missteps in the case. She was appointed under legally dubious circumstances, to the point that the DOJ has taken the step of proactively endorsing her appointment and the charges she is bringing, to try to avert a federal court disqualifying her.