President Donald Trump demanded action, and that's exactly what the Justice Department delivered.
New York Times reporter Mike Schmidt co-authored a report on Wednesday that said prosecutors in the Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney's Office initially moved slowly in responding to Democratic elected officials who told members of the military and intelligence community they could disobey unconstitutional orders. Trump called this treason. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called it sedition and attempted to demote Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), reducing his retirement and rank.
“Our laws are clear,” Kelly said in the video. “You can refuse illegal orders.”
Kelly sued, and so far, he's winning.
Then something change and the effort went into overdrive, going to a grand jury, which immediately failed.
"The botched attempt to prosecute the lawmakers for what was essentially an act of political dissent, critics say, was an egregious misuse of the grand jury system even for a Justice Department that has repeatedly trampled over prosecutorial norms in its efforts to satisfy Mr. Trump’s pursuit of vengeance against his adversaries," the report said.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host, demanded that her team bring the indictments regardless of whether the grand jury approved them.
"The case blew up. This is how the Trump DOJ operates," wrote Schmidt on X.
Now, some in Pirro's office are "rattled," nervous that "it reflects a broader problem with Washington grand jurors, according to three people familiar with the matter."
"Prosecutors have been repeatedly caught between the president’s insistence that they undertake weak or baseless cases and the necessity of having to go to court," the Times said.
It isn't the first time. Last summer, when Trump ordered the National Guard deployment to Washington, D.C., to aid in the arrest of immigrants, there were many protesters who ended up before D.C. grand juries. Most famously, the so-called "sandwich guy," a man who threw a footlong at federal agents, was fired from his government job, and his case went before a grand jury. The DOJ lost, with the grand jury refusing an indictment. So, Pirro tried to charge him with lower-level charges. He was acquitted.
Cases like this are generally taken seriously and handled with the "gravity" of the situation. That didn't appear to happen this time, however, those familiar told the Times.
"They said that as recently as last month, the prosecutors working on the case had not determined what statutes had been broken and left the impression with defense lawyers that the effort fell short of a formal investigation," the report said. "About two weeks ago, one prosecutor, Steven Vandervelden, told one of the lawmakers’ lawyers that the ballgame had barely begun, according to the lawyer, who related the account on the condition of anonymity. He gave no suggestion that a prosecution was about to hit."
However, the move for the grand jury came quickly. It isn't clear what changed.
