It’s nearly inconceivable that the loudmouthed fool appointed as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, chosen to replace the incompetent minion who was so awful that not even the uber compliant Senate would confirm him, was unable to get an indictment in three tries. For those who would come up with other excuses, like the grand juries thrice refused to indict because it was comprised of radical leftists, bullshit.
It takes almost nothing to indict, the process being entirely one sided and allowing hearsay accusations to substitute for evidence. Sol Wachtler’s “ham sandwich” quote is too on the nose. Yet, Jeanine Pirro failed. And failed. And failed. And so Sidney Reid will be charged with misdemeanor assault, because no indictment is needed.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
This time, there was video. It wasn’t as if there was any question about what happened. It was there to be seen. And still, the grand jury refused to indict.
The grand jury’s rejection of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the second time in recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to fight crime and patrol the city’s streets.
No one is arguing that it’s acceptable to throw a submarine sandwich at a federal agent. What is being argued, and has from the start, is that it’s laughable that it be charged as a felony assault. The agent wasn’t harmed, nor could he be. It was a sandwich. The worst it could do is get some condiment on his body armor, for crying out loud. But our glorious protectors of law and order couldn’t possibly allow this act of defiance to go without being grossly exaggerated and absurdly overcharged to prove their might.
The sandwich thrower was a paralegal working for the Department of Justice. Naturally, Pam Bondi had to put on a show of firing him, not because he didn’t deserve to be fired for his act but because it’s all a big show. And it’s unclear that the show isn’t over. After all, disobedience will not be tolerated.
It remained unclear if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain an indictment against Mr. Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also forgo seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor, which does not require an indictment to move forward.
On the bright side, at least the agents didn’t shoot Dunn or disappear him to Uganda. It’s not as if citizens, along with legal permanent residents and legal visa holders, haven’t been swept into the mix of ICE filling quotas with anybody they grab and let God sort them out later. But given that this act of defiance went viral due to the video, something had to be done to Dunn to prove that our government wouldn’t tolerate any act of defiance.
At Reason, C.J. Ciaramella explains this as the residents of DC being so disgusted by this dog and pony show of force that they are nullifying the government’s efforts.
As Reason‘s Billy Binion wrote, the “disproportionate response to [Dunn’s] offense epitomizes why Trump’s plan appears to be, at least for now, more political theater than a real solutions-oriented approach” to crime in D.C.
While the New York Times calls this a “sharp rebuke,” Ciarmella is more blunt.
Not bound by the Times‘ style guide and decorum, I can explain it to federal prosecutors more bluntly: They’re clowning on you. They don’t respect you, and they don’t want you there.
From here, he goes to the n-word.
D.C. residents, because they live in a federal district, may be under the administration’s thumb, but thanks to the right to jury trials, they still have access to a powerful check on excessive and unpopular prosecutions: jury nullification.
Whether or not the grand jury presentation was competent and adequate, and it just nullified the charge as excessive, is unclear, but it remains a flagrant demonstration of incompetence either way. But then, what did you expect out of Jeanine Pirro?
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“Assault with a deli weapon”… well played, Scott, well played.
Is the rule regarding not bringing the case before a new grand jury after a no-bill a creature of federal statute or is it from the DOJ manuals? I’m not a federal CDL, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think it is a DOJ rule. Mr. Greenfield, I would advise you not to touch the DOJ manual after DJT and Judge Jeanine have finished using it on their posteriors. I think that this could go on for awhile longer if not another three years.
As for a dog and pony show, it appears that crime is significantly down in D.C. since the federal intervention, even from the cooked numbers that the MPD previously used. I suppose that the D.C. bougie class would rather be right than rich.
[Ed. Note: Is crime down? How would you know?]
Mayor Bowser, via NBC News, told me. It’s a statement against interest.
Put a whole lot more police/federal agents/soldiers on the streets and people lay low until they’re gone. Then they’ll be back. Or you’ll have a perpetual military occupation, and they’ll still be back in time since they have nothing better to do with themselves.
There has always been crime. Two weeks didn’t fix it.
Don’t tell that to the Bad Orange Man. He will probably interpret it as a call for a permanent military occupation.
Technically, I think that the authorization under the statute expires in a few more days. I will be interested in seeing what the administration does then. I am not sure that Congress will step in to sue the President if he decides that olive drab is the new official color of D.C.
This is what happens when you go out of your way to make DUI hires. I expected no less.
Did they fail even to indict the sandwich? So much for Judge Wachtler….
[Ed. Note: I really liked him before he went nuts.]