In a recent analysis, Mediaite contributing eitor Sarah Rumpf observed that while there's a common axiom that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich, prosecutors at President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice are failing to even meet that standard.
“A 21 percent dismissal rate,” reports Rumpf, citing a summary of the criminal complaint dismissals over eight weeks at the Washington D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office. “Twenty-one percent. That means that more than one out of every five criminal cases brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. are getting dismissed by the courts, a truly stunning turnaround for an office long known for experienced prosecutors able to handle the most complicated of cases.”
The Biden DOJ, comparatively, averaged fewer than 1 percent of federal criminal defendants being acquitted in 2022. This should be a pace the Trump DOJ can maintain considering how many advantages a federal prosecutor has over the defendant, per Rumpf.
“The axiom about a prosecutor’s apparent ease in convincing a grand jury to indict that proverbial sandwich highlights the slanted nature of the proceedings, with only a government prosecutor in the room and the defendants and defense counsel unable to participate in the process or submit evidence or witnesses for their side,” said Rumpf. “And even after defendants are read the charges against them and are able to legally defend themselves, the government still often has the upper hand, with an essentially unlimited budget and scores of experienced prosecutors.”
But critics say Trump’s DOJ sent many career prosecutors and officials packing through firings, being encouraged to resign, retirement or quitting. Now Rumpf writes: “The DOJ’s stumbles aren’t just resulting in cases being dismissed; it’s rewriting the whole relationship between the prosecutors and the federal judges, with the ‘presumption of regularity’ — the legal doctrine where the courts operate under the assumption that prosecutors and other government officials are acting in good faith and their legal filings and representations to the court can be trusted — getting flipped on its head.”
For years, it was rare for a federal court to question the Justice Department’s good faith or competency. But now judges are reportedly growing suspicious of the DOJ’s legal missteps and its scent of deception under Trump.
“As a result, it’s becoming increasingly common for DOJ prosecutors to see their credibility and ethics openly challenged in judicial opinions, subpoenas quashed, charges dismissed, and even sometimes threatened with criminal contempt. And that’s if the case even makes it that far, with a growing number of grand juries refusing to issue indictments in the first place,” Rumpf reports.
Federal magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui recently blasted Trump’s DOJ for its “broader pattern of unprecedented prosecutorial missteps,” and Rumpf said “the habitual use of social media and efforts to sway the court of public opinion by … Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, isn’t helping.”
Read Rumpf's Mediaite analysis at this link.
