Flummoxed Republicans investigate why DC juries don’t trust Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the U.S. economy and affordability at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, U.S. December 9, 2025.

It can’t be that President Donald Trump lies too much, or that his Department of Justice is a politicized weapon set upon his perceived enemies — so there’s got to be something turning DC jurors against the DOJ’s cases. And the Washington Sun says the Republican House committee overseeing local D.C. affairs is going to get to the bottom of it.

Committee Republicans launched an investigation into “politicized jury nullification initiatives by left-wing activist groups,” Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) announced Tuesday.

“The investigation is so far targeting two D.C. organizations, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and Free DC, which have hosted a series of trainings called the Juror Information Project,” reports the Sun. “Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, alleges the groups are advocating for the long-debated practice of jury nullification, which happens when a juror opts to acquit someone — even if they think the accused person is technically guilty — because they object to the law or to the decision by prosecutors to charge the person.”

The Sun reports a string of hideous failures by Trump prosecutors to land grand jury indictments have raised questions about whether jurors were declining to indict because they believed prosecutors had not presented enough evidence to establish probable cause, or because they disagreed with the decision to pursue charges in the first place.

But Comer argues that public education groups in DC are undermining the rule of law.

“It is clear that the position of Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is that potential jurors should not make decisions impartially based on applying the law as instructed to the facts presented before them in the case, but based on their subjective, personal beliefs and activist agendas,” Comer said in a Tuesday news release. “These shocking reports underscore the necessity of congressional oversight to protect against an assault targeting constitutional rights and processes.”

But without getting inside jurors’ heads, it’s impossible to know for sure, said the Sun. Debate around jury nullification in D.C. grew last year after a streak of humiliating derailments where D.C. grand juries declined to indict people arrested for allegedly assaulting federal officers — such as the so-called “sandwich guy,” who hurled hoagie at a federal agent in a self-described act of protest.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore, at the time, testified that he could “feel” the offending sandwich through his ballistic vest.

“It exploded on my chest ... I could smell the onions and mustard,” Lairmore claimed.

Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro pursued Sean C. Dunn for felony assault. But after a grand jury declined to indict the sandwich hurler, Pirro’s prosecutors downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor — only for another D.C. jury to find the defendant not guilty of that.

Grand juries almost always return indictments, and not doing so is exceedingly rare. The process is largely generally stacked in prosecutors’ favor. However, Pirro’s office was asking grand juries for indictments in the midst of an unpopular surge of federal law enforcement.

But even outside of DC, the Trump DOJ has failed to nab indictments of Trump’s other perceived enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former FBI head James Comey.

Perhaps it does not help that DOJ sources have sounded the alarm, saying a top Justice Department official threatened to fire federal prosecutors if they “decline to investigate and pursue cases of reported election fraud.”

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