In another defeat to President Donald Trump’s tough-on-crime team of prosecutors, a New York grand jury has refused to prosecute an Indiana woman who claimed on Facebook and in emails that she was willing to murder the president.
WUSA9 reports Nathalie Rose Jones’s claims were colorful, but a grand jury didn’t buy that she posed a credible threat to Trump, despite Jones posting that she was willing to “sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.”
Jones’ posts drew a visit by U.S. Secret Service agents at her New York apartment. Agents questioned her but did not immediately arrest her. Federal forces collected her the next day, on Aug. 16, in the District of Columbia, on the way to a protest. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, a former Fox News host, passionately announced the arrest in an Aug. 18 press statement.
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“Threatening the life of the President is one of the most serious crimes and one that will be met with swift and unwavering prosecution,” said Pirro. “Make no mistake — justice will be served.”
But the jury didn’t see the need to serve any “justice”, reports WUSA9. D.C. District Court Chief Judge Jeb Boasberg released 49-year-old Jones last week to GPS monitoring over the objection of prosecutors. Boasberg also overturned a ruling by a magistrate judge who ordered Jones detained following her D.C. arrest.
“If she had a gun with her this case is easy,” Boasberg said. “But the question is, why shouldn’t we consider this the rantings of someone with a mental illness with no ability to carry this out?”
Assistant federal public defender Mary Petras, who defended Jones, asked Boasberg to remove Jones’ remaining release conditions upon the argument that the grand jury declined to indict.
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“A grand jury has now found no probable cause to indict Ms. Jones on the charged offenses,” Petras wrote. “Given that finding, the weight of the evidence is weak. The government may intend to try again to obtain an indictment, but the evidence has not changed and no indictment is likely.”
Read the full WUSA9 report at this link.