The most important story of Donald Trump’s second term just might be one that has been unfolding quietly behind closed doors, as grand jurors have been rejecting some of his Justice Department’s most politicized charges, preventing them from even making it to trial.
So, while the rejection of charges against Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday was remarkable in its own right, it was only the latest data point in a stunning pattern that has emerged over the past year.
The Trump DOJ’s failure to secure an indictment in Washington against Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.; Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; and others follows its failure to convince grand jurors in Virginia to revive charges against another Democrat, New York Attorney General Letitia James. Slotkin, Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers had released a video urging soldiers not to follow illegal orders, after which the Republican president accused them in a social media post of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
Through their refusal to indict, the grand jurors in D.C. effectively said the senators’ actions shouldn’t be punishable at all.
Just as importantly, the grand jury rebuffs haven’t only come to the aid of prominent figures. Grand jurors also have stood up for everyday people whom the Trump DOJ has sought to charge with assaults on law enforcement officers carrying out his federal occupation in Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles. Think sandwich thrower Sean Dunn — or Sidney Reid, whom grand jurors refused to indict a whopping three times. In both Dunn’s case and Reid’s, prosecutors plowed forward to trial on misdemeanor charges — which didn’t require grand jury approval — and the D.C. trial juries returned not guilty verdicts.
But what about Don Lemon, you might wonder? Grand jurors in Minnesota recently approved questionable charges against the former CNN anchor and others over their actions at a church in the Trump-terrorized state.
At most, his charges stand out as an exception that proves the incredible rule lately. That his case raised the realistic possibility of his grand jurors being the latest ones to check the administration only served to highlight the phenomenon of grand jurors doing so in other cases around the country, regardless of their decision in his case.
It’s a phenomenon whose significance is difficult to overstate and continues to stun people who have experience in the criminal system. That’s because the bar for prosecutors to clear with a grand jury is relatively low, and the presentations are generally one-sided affairs in the government’s favor. Hence the old saying that prosecutors could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
Against that backdrop, it’s unremarkable that federal prosecutors could get an indictment against Lemon or anyone else they set their sights on. Grand jury presentations are typically the start of a case, not the end. Therefore, securing an indictment in a given case doesn’t say a whole lot about the case’s prospects, with trial juries still standing in the way of any prosecution that makes it that far, where the government needs to prove its case to everyday citizens beyond a reasonable doubt.
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