A federal grand jury declined to approve criminal charges against Sen. Mark Kelly and the other five Democratic lawmakers whom Trump accused of “seditious behavior.”
By Zack Linly
Get Up Mornings with Erica Campbell
https://getuperica.com/
The MAGA-controlled U.S. Department of Justice has, once again, failed to secure an indictment against the political rivals of President Donald Trump, as a federal grand jury has declined to approve criminal charges against Sen. Mark Kelly and the other five Democratic lawmakers whom Trump accused of “seditious behavior” that was “punishable by death” all because they advised military officers of their duty to refuse any unlawful orders given by the president, who is consistently being told by federal judges that what he’s doing with military personnel is unlawful.
According to the Washington Post, on Tuesday, the grand jury said no to indictments against Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, as well as Democratic Reps. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger; Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer; Chris Deluzio, a former Navy officer; and Maggie Goodlander, a Navy veteran. Last year, these six Democratic legislators recorded a video in which they accused the Trump administration of “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” and reminded troops that they “swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution,” which the administration has played fast and loose with since the start of Trump’s second term. The Pentagon launched an investigation into the six Democrats in November, largely because the commander-in-draft-dodging-bone-spurs thinks he knows more about the proper behavior of ex-military and intelligence officers than those who have actually served in those positions, including the two senators, both of whom sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Post noted that “it is exceedingly rare for grand juries to reject indictments, in part because prosecutors only need to convince a majority of grand jurors that there is a probable cause that a crime was committed — a relatively low threshold.” But it’s far from “exceedingly rare” for Trump’s DOJ, which is so bad at its job that it can’t figure out how to lawfully appoint a U.S. attorney, and is consistently losing its seasoned prosecutors because they refuse to engage in petty lawfare against anyone the president decides he wants to weaponize the federal government against on a whim.
The administration certainly thought it was winning last year, when it secured transparently retaliatory criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but a judge ultimately dismissed both cases because Lindsey Halligan, the now-former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who was hand-picked by Trump, was prosecuting the cases despite not being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and having exceeded the grace period acting U.S. attorneys get before their confirmation is required. After the cases were dismissed, the DOJ tried and failed to re-indict James not once, but twice.
The DOJ also failed to get a grand jury to indict a man on felony charges for chucking a sub sandwich at a federal immigration officer in Washington, D.C. — which the defendant, Sean C. Dunn, did on camera — and then another jury found Dunn not guilty on misdemeanor charges for the same offense.
All of these failures resulted in major embarrassment for the Trump administration, because the president and his loyal sycophants made such a big, public show out of going full fire and brimstone against their targets, declaring that “no one is above the law” and promising retribution. It’s no different with these six Democrats that the administration tried to prosecute for using their First Amendment rights to combat its persistent authoritarianism. Trump and his people, including U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, went above and beyond in blasting Kelly and the rest in the media, seeming so damn confident that they would pay the price for undermining the president, who has spent his entire political career undermining democracy, the Constitution, the rule of law and the standard for basic human decency.
In fact, after the grand jury declined the indictment, Slotkin tweeted, “But today wasn’t just an embarrassing day for the Administration. It was another sad day for our country.”
I mean, it’s certainly a “sad day” for the administration and anyone who actually thinks this band of woefully incompetent imbeciles, led by their woefully incompetent, imbecilic and probably demented chief executive, was ever good for the nation.
Sad.
