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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office dismissed felony charges on Thursday against a man accused of threatening to kill Donald Trump. It’s one of several recent cases where grand juries have rejected the Trump administration’s charges in Washington, D.C., which have come amid his deployment of military personnel to the nation’s capital.
According to an FBI affidavit, Edward Dana damaged a light fixture outside a restaurant in D.C. and made comments threatening the president.
“Why is the government not out of sheer embarrassment and shame seeking to dismiss with prejudice and expunge the record?” asked Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui.
Dana, who told law enforcement he has intellectual disabilities and was intoxicated, reportedly threatened to kill both Trump and the officer who arrested him. “I’m not going to tolerate fascism… You want to stand in the way of our Constitution, I will fucking kill you,” he said, according to the affidavit.
A grand jury decided not to indict Dana on Tuesday. Prosecutors will now seek low-level vandalism charges.
A former Fox News host, Pirro assumed the role of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in May, after Trump’s original pick, MAGA superfan Ed Martin, failed to win enough support from Republicans to secure the job on a permanent basis.
Pirro said on August 25 that there had been more than 1,000 arrests since Trump began his crackdown in Washington. Grand juries have not been convinced that all the arrests are legitimate.
“To say that it’s rare for a grand jury to decline to indict would be a gross understatement,” columnist Paul Butler wrote in The Washington Post Thursday. “In 25 years at the U.S. Justice Department, former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance never saw it in any her cases, nor did law professor Randall Eliason in his 12 years as a federal prosecutor. But it happened seven times in recent weeks in D.C.”
“This is not the fault of career prosecutors, but rather the office’s failure — again and again — to secure indictments suggests that the administration has absolutely destroyed its credibility with jurors,” prosecutor Brendan Ballou, who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. until January, told CBS News.
Last week, a grand jury declined to indict Sean Charles Dunn, who faced felony charges after he threw a sandwich at a federal agent. The New York Times called the episode “a remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.”
“Fuck you! You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn allegedly shouted.
Prosecutors subsequently charged him with a misdemeanor assault charge.
“It is not difficult to imagine 12 D.C. jurors concluding that throwing a sandwich at a federal officer — while clearly objectionable and potentially unlawful — does not amount to felony assault,” former federal prosecutor Victor Salgado told CBS News. “At its core, the federal grand jury functions as a vital constitutional safeguard and a critical check on prosecutorial discretion, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.”
On Monday, a grand jury in D.C. decided not to indict Nathalie Rose Jones, a woman from Indiana with schizophrenia who had posted on Facebook that she was “willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.”
“Threatening the life of the president is one of the most serious crimes and one that will be met with swift and unwavering prosecution,” Pirro said. “Make no mistake — justice will be served.”
The jury “found no probable cause,” her legal team said.
Last week, a grand jury refused to indict Alvin Summers, who was accused of assaulting a U.S. Park Police officer. He had allegedly fled from an officer, and when she tried to handcuff him, he apparently pulled them both to the ground and injured her.
“Given the grand jury’s decision, Mr. Summers should not be forced to live under the threat of later charges and rearrest,” wrote assistant federal public defender Mary Petras. “The charges against Mr. Summers were based on an allegation made by one officer who was wearing a body-worn camera. That officer’s testimony was rejected by the grand jury, presumably after reviewing the body-worn camera video.”
Also last week, prosecutors with Pirro’s office said three grand juries declined to indict Sidney Reid, who was charged with “assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees.” In July, she filmed the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they transferred two men from a D.C. jail into federal custody. Officers told her to step back but she did not.
An ICE officer pushed her against the wall, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and she allegedly “continued to struggle and fight.” This reportedly resulted in an FBI agent’s hand getting lacerated from scraping the wall. Pirro’s office said it was charging Reid with a misdemeanor instead.
A federal magistrate judge threw out a case last week involving the search of a Black man in Washington, D.C. Police stopped Torez Riley as he went to Trader Joe’s. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
Judge Zia M. Faruqui said the case was “absolutely maddening” and based on an illegal search.
“Lawlessness cannot come from the government,” Faruqui said. “We’re pushing the boundaries here. We’re beyond the boundaries and something is going to have to break.”
