The phrase “unprecedented” is getting a exercise after a grand jury in Washington on Feb. 10, 2026, rebuffed an try by means of federal prosecutors to get an indictment towards perceived enemies of President Donald Trump.
It all started with an unparalleled video in November 2025 that includes six Democratic lawmakers alerting army and intelligence group contributors that they’d the obligation to disobey unlawful orders. That enraged Trump, who in an unparalleled transfer mentioned the lawmakers had been to blame of sedition, which is punishable by means of demise. The U.S. lawyer for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, made the unparalleled try to indict the lawmakers. The overall part on this drama – the federal grand jury’s rejection of Pirro’s request – wasn’t itself unparalleled. That’s as it’s most effective the most recent in an unparalleled string of losses for the Trump management sooner than grand juries.
Dickinson Faculty President John E. Jones III, a former federal pass judgement on, spoke with The Dialog politics editor Naomi Schalit concerning the position of grand juries, why a grand jury would no longer indict somebody – and the way all of it is a mirrored image of the management’s outstanding lack of credibility with judges and the electorate who make up grand juries.
Six Democratic lawmakers advising the army and intelligence group that they don’t want to obey unlawful orders.
How does the grand jury procedure paintings?
The grand jury in reality dates again to sooner than the Invoice of Rights, however for our functions it’s memorialized within the 5th Modification inside the Invoice of Rights. It’s supposed to be a mechanism that displays instances introduced by means of prosecutors.
Peculiar electorate, no longer fewer than 16 or greater than 23, have the information introduced to them by means of a United States lawyer or assistant United States lawyer. They will have to make a resolution as as to whether or no longer there may be possible purpose to consider {that a} crime has been dedicated. It’s not the purview of grand jurors to decide guilt or innocence, however simply to decide whether or not there may be possible purpose enough to indict.
In order that implies that a prosecutor will come to a grand jury and provide them with the information that they have got selected to give them with. There’s no protection at that time, and the grand jury then, rather robotically, says OK, “Indict that person,” or “Indict those people”?
That’s proper. It’s an excessively one-sided procedure. There aren’t any protection lawyers provide. There’s a court docket reporter, the grand jury, the US lawyer, and such witnesses as the US lawyer makes a decision to name. Whilst the objective of a grand jury can enterprise to give witnesses, together with themselves, that in most cases by no means occurs as a result of the chance of self-incrimination. The grand jurors can ask questions of the witnesses, however the US lawyer can select the proof that it desires to give to the grand jury, and normally they provide most effective such proof as is vital with a purpose to determine possible purpose {that a} crime has been dedicated.
Does the general public know what is gifted in a grand jury room by means of the prosecutor?
The grand jury court cases are completely secret they usually stay that approach, until a federal pass judgement on authorizes that they be unsealed. So within the case involving the six lawmakers, we don’t know what the prosecutor introduced to the grand jury. We simply know that the grand jury refused to go back an indictment. So far as I do know, we don’t even know what crimes had been put sooner than the grand jury, let on my own what testimony was once introduced. What we do know is that during all six instances, the grand jury refused to vote in desire of the indictment that was once asked by means of the US lawyer.
Why would a grand jury refuse to present the prosecutor what they would like?
It’s unparalleled, despite the fact that we now see a wave of grand juries pushing again towards the federal government. I don’t recall a unmarried example, all over the virtually twenty years I served as a U.S. District pass judgement on, when a grand jury refused to go back a real invoice, an indictment. It simply is totally aberrational. The grand jury must utterly reject the entire premise of the case that’s being introduced to them by means of the US lawyer as a result of, have in mind, there are normally no witnesses showing sooner than the grand jury to dispute the information. The grand jury is obviously pronouncing, “Even accepting the facts you’re putting before us as true, we don’t think under these circumstances this case is worthy of a federal indictment.”
Can a prosecutor simply take a look at once more?
They may be able to go back to the neatly, as a way to discuss, they usually did that during Virginia in terms of Letitia James. Nevertheless it’s lovely perilous as a result of, bluntly, it’s some way {that a} prosecutor can get their head passed to them two times.
In the beginning, as set out within the 5th Modification to the Charter, the grand jury was once meant to be a energetic and strong test towards prosecutors merely charging folks with crimes. However over the years, it’s develop into a ways lower than that. And there may be the well-known quote by means of Pass judgement on Sol Wachtler in New York {that a} grand jury will also be made to “indict a ham sandwich.”
To be able to see a grand jury fail to go back true expenses more than one instances over the last couple of months is outstanding and unparalleled. It happens to me that what is going on right here is more or less parallel to what’s going down with the management and federal judges. I feel we have now entered a global the place the Division of Justice has misplaced its credibility with the judiciary.
We’re seeing that again and again in appearances in court docket the place judges merely don’t consider what U.S. lawyers are telling them, in accordance with previous demonstrable falsehoods which have been said in open court docket. And now we see grand juries which are additionally doubting the credibility of federal prosecutors. And those grand jurors aren’t blind to what’s going down on this planet round them.
I feel that that is additional polluted by means of the truth that the president of the US, for instance, in terms of the six defendants from Congress and the Senate, mentioned that they’d dedicated seditious acts – which is punishable by means of demise.
Clearly, this tilts the scales and is essentially unfair as a result of it’s destroying the concept that of due means of regulation. Other folks understand what the president says, and I’m glad to look that the typical citizen serving on a grand jury has retained what I feel is a elementary sense of equity, even within the face of a beautiful stacked deck.
President Donald Trump’s social media publish of Nov. 20, 2025, responding to the lawmakers’ video.
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What does it imply in case you have a court docket gadget, judges and the grand juries who shouldn’t have religion within the management and its criminal claims?
It’s a whole drag on our gadget of justice. For the entire time that I sat at the federal bench, I had nice admire for the Division of Justice, and the dep. had super credibility. They had been instantly shooters. The prosecutors who gave the impression in entrance of me had been pros. I didn’t all the time consider their arguments, after all, nor did I consider a couple of in their charging selections, however I will let you know that no longer as soon as did I see a federal prosecution in entrance of me that I felt strongly will have to by no means were introduced at its inception.
However we have now a gadget the place, as a result of the whims of the president, the Division of Justice has develop into totally weaponized towards his perceived enemies, and that’s a gross misuse of our prosecutorial energy on the federal degree.
Additionally, if, for instance, those contributors of Congress were indicted, they’d need to attorney up, they’d need to battle their approach out. That may take a large number of sources.
So, sure, the judiciary generally is a bulwark towards improvident prosecutions. However that comes at a value to the defendant, and it’s been mentioned that the method itself is the punishment. I think that’s what the president desires; it’s the trauma that you simply put anyone via that may be virtually as unhealthy as being convicted. And, after all, there’s the reputational hurt as neatly.
