Trump May Be Winning On Main, But His Local Prosecutors Can’t Even Get Grand Jury Indictments
from the lol-get-fucked-shitheels dept
I know it often seems like it’s bad news all the time on the Techdirt channel. And I’m sorry it’s that way. I wish we weren’t dealing with a daily deluge of new awfulness from the current president and his enablers.
But that’s what’s happening so that’s how it ends up looking here, as well as anywhere else election conspiracy theorists aren’t routinely asked to “comment” or “respond” to the latest wave of evil emanating from the White House.
On that note, let’s all enjoy this bit of winning, even if it will do little to deter Trump from being the frothy madman so many of his supporters clearly prefer him to be.
It has been said a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. This phrase exposes the reality of nearly every grand jury, which — unlike a regular jury — doesn’t need to decide whether or not someone is guilty, but rather whether or not someone can be semi-credibly accused of committing a crime. Hence the ability of most grand juries to speed run the criminal justice curve in record time. And, also hence, a grand jury’s ability to pin a crime on an inanimate object.
Despite having everything in their favor, local-level government prosecutors can’t even talk bored grand jury members into hanging felonies on their latest ham sandwiches. That isn’t making those with a bit more paycheck on the line happy, as the LA Times reports. In a city that has seen uninterrupted protests against ICE — protests that resulted in the (illegal) deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to the city — a federal prosecutor apparently lost his entire shit following a string of shutouts pitched by local grand juries.
US Attorney Bill Essayli is under pressure, to be sure, what with an entire administration full of bigots and delusional conspiracy theorists demanding 3,000 migrant arrests a day and enough exaggerated “violent protest” to justify the rollout of martial law in “democrat” states.
He cracked. And he did it publicly, although he probably didn’t know it at the time. Engage your schadenfreude engines, kiddos. Let’s have a little fun at other (awful) people’s expense:
A prosecutor had the irate Trump administration appointee on speakerphone outside the grand jury room, and his screaming was audible, according to three law enforcement officials aware of the encounter who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
The grand jury had just refused to indict someone accused of attacking federal law enforcement officers during protests against the recent immigration raids throughout Southern California, two of the federal officials said.
[…]
On the overheard call, according to the three officials, Essayli, 39, told a subordinate to disregard the federal government’s “Justice Manual,” which directs prosecutors to bring only cases they can win at trial. Essayli barked that prosecutors should press on and secure indictments as directed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, according to the three officials.
Yeah, if I’m someone who wants to have a career as a prosecutor or lawyer, I’m not going to throw my lot in with Bondi and her DOJ. It’s career suicide, unless you’re a true believer, or someone who (more plausibly, unfortunately) believes this nation is headed towards decades of open authoritarianism. Essayli might be a true believer. His subordinates — no matter their current MAGA level — couldn’t talk rational people into accepting irrational charges.
According to this report, 38 charges against protesters have been filed by the federal government. So far, prosecutors have only secured seven indictments. Some cases have been no-billed. Others have been booted down to misdemeanors, which means neither the federal government nor the federal grand jury need to be involved any further.
Essayli was apparently hoping a lot of high level federal charges would bring protesters to heel. Instead, he’s the heel screaming performatively into a phone, demanding underlings bring him all the heads he’s asked for, even if those heads are no longer available.
Here’s what his office said in response to a request for comment. And it speaks for itself, even (or especially) because it says nothing at all:
A statement provided by his office on Tuesday accused The Times of spreading “factual inaccuracies and anonymous gossip,” but offered no specifics or further comment in response to questions.
Once again, the easiest way to determine whether or not something is true is to ask this administration about it. If it replies with a blanket statement containing phrases like “fake news” or “factual inaccuracies” without providing contradicting facts of its own, it’s safe to assume the reports being not-even-really-denied by the Trump administration are largely, if not completely, true.
Anyway, I just thought you might enjoy this secondhand description of a federal prosecutor losing his shit on main because the government’s bullshit was too much for even complacent, compliant grand juries to swallow. And there will be more failures in the future because a lot of America — the America this administration pretends doesn’t exist — is sick to death of this insanely swift descent into fascism. It’s one thing to check the Overton window. It’s quite another thing to shatter it because you’re too impulsive or stupid to see if it can be nudged open a bit before exploring your options further.
Filed Under: bill essayli, california, dhs, grand jury, mass deportation, protests, trump administration
Comments on “Trump May Be Winning On Main, But His Local Prosecutors Can’t Even Get Grand Jury Indictments”
This is the great thing about juries. When the prosecutor and/or law enforcement have zero credibility they just reflexively “nullify”.
That said, here they have every reason to believe they are actually correct.
Re:
Your confusing juries with grand juries. The grand juries job is to determine that if the defendant were to not show up in court, the prosecution would likely win. It’s a really, really low bar.
What’s happening here is that the grand jury is telling the prosecutors that they will likely lose even if the defendant doesn’t bother hiring a lawyer or putting up any defense what so ever.
Jury nullification is when the jury basically says “The law is stupid, so we are not going to convict no matter what the evidence is.” It’s something completely different and a small additional check on the power of the government.
And the fact that prosecutors and grand juries didn’t find evidence of actual assault in so many cases proves ICE’s assault statistics are bullshit. If you read other articles on the failure to push to trial, they note that a lot of the footage contradicted the testimony of the officers. The claims of assault turned out to be descriptions of the officers assaulting the protesters.
Remember this the next time someone comes into the comments clutching their pearls about assaults on our brave dedicated federal officers, bravely dedicated to assaulting people and lying about it.
Potential jurors would be well advised to keep their mouths shut in voir dire and never give the prosecutor gangs a whiff of suspicion, then promptly attempt to nullify any and all charges once impaneled. Hurt them where it counts: their precious win records.
Re:
Grand jury. Not the same.
No voir dire. But for trial juries, oh sure, encourage illegal and unjust behavior which could bite everyone in the ass.
Nullification is a term of the art, and you don’t know what it means.
Perhaps check the first reply to the first comment for more.
This is one of those things that will have a knock-on effect with ALL cases involving the DOJ, it’s what happened to the Bush Administration, all of a sudden trust in the admin was lost, and judges started acting accordingly (losing trust was the tipping point). There is evidence this is already happening now, and it’s only going to get worse, and to that I say yippee.
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Appointing Bove to a federal judgeship isn’t going to do the admin any favours, looks like a 3rd whistleblower has now come forward with evidence that the shithead is a liar and criminal: https://crooksandliars.com/2025/07/third-whistleblower-confirms-trump-nominee
“… indict a ham sandwich …” UNLESS that particular pork product was wearing a badge. For decades, centuries, before today, the one type of defendant who didn’t get indicted by a grand jury was a cop.
Recently that has changed – slightly. Cops still mostly walk for activities that would get a poor black man years inside (or worse). Just a little less so.
Slightly for the better. I have some hope that will continue.
is it just me or
if DHS were operating legally and in good faith – I know, right? – aren’t there enough undocumented immigrants that they could actually (with at least minimal due diligence) find arguably justification-worthy indictments to bring?
Seems like tacit acknowledgement they’re screaming the dog ate their homework
Re: correx
“adjudication worthy” would probably be better than “justification worthy.”
Re: Re:
Quantity, not quality.
Re:
These weren’t arrests of undocumented immigrants. These were the arrests of people that federal officers encountered during protests. If they were undocumented, they’d likely have been shipped off for immediate
deportationtrafficking instead of being arrested and released pending trial or charges being dropped.Re: 'They were minding their own business while working at their job.'
We can’t have that, the juries(grand or otherwise) might start asking pesky questions like ‘What was the person who you want us to believe is a massive threat to national security and the country as a whole doing when you arrested them?’
'I have video PROOF!' 'Can we see it?' 'Only after I'm done editing it.'
Who could have expected that when you’re caught lying time and time again people are less inclined to believe that you’re telling the truth this time?
Re:
Cops really hate the existence of cameras. They miss the days of just having their word taken for truth over their victims.
Thank you for that first paragraph. Those words are important and appreciated.
I sat on a federal grand jury for one year. We met 1-4 days each month. It’s very difficult not to vote in favor of indicting, especially when new to the process and faced with a packed schedule of cases. We were yelled out when we didn’t keep to schedule and threatened with losing our breaks and lunch time. Even when they double booked the time slots, it was our fault for not keeping schedule.
I can remember NOT returning a true bill only once during that year of service.
With all this in mind, I have very deep respect for those grand juries in LA. More power to them! If I am ever called to serve again, I will have the experience of the past and others since then to guide me to do better.
Any guesses on how long it will take the trump admin to skip the grand jury process because it isn’t giving them the results they want?
It’s good to see people resisting the regime.