Federal grand juries in Chicago are also rejecting Trump's Justice Department

essentialsaltes · 2025-12-11T15:08:14-0600

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is no stranger to losing grand jury cases, but now that federal agents have moved into Chicago, prosecutors there are being blocked from prosecutions, too.

The first time it happened in November, a magistrate judge said that until recently, he'd only ever heard of a grand jury rejecting a prosecution once in the "early part of this century." Now it's happened three times in the past few months.

Nathan Griffin, who is a manager of the Lake View comedy club, the Laugh Factory, was accused of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was involved in the operation. He was accused of trying to shut a car door when the agent was getting out of the car.

While grand juries have cleared three people, at least 13 defendants have had charges against them dropped that are connected to the "Operation Midway Blitz" efforts.

Thus far, prosecutors have not secured a single conviction of individuals arrested for charges connected to "Midway Blitz," the report said.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-12-11T19:15:13-0600

essentialsaltes said:
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is no stranger to losing grand jury cases, but now that federal agents have moved into Chicago, prosecutors there are being blocked from prosecutions, too.

The first time it happened in November, a magistrate judge said that until recently, he'd only ever heard of a grand jury rejecting a prosecution once in the "early part of this century." Now it's happened three times in the past few months.

Nathan Griffin, who is a manager of the Lake View comedy club, the Laugh Factory, was accused of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was involved in the operation. He was accused of trying to shut a car door when the agent was getting out of the car.

While grand juries have cleared three people, at least 13 defendants have had charges against them dropped that are connected to the "Operation Midway Blitz" efforts.

Thus far, prosecutors have not secured a single conviction of individuals arrested for charges connected to "Midway Blitz," the report said.

Proving my point from a different thread from earlier in the week, there are certain jurisdictions where getting an impartial jury is darn near impossible.

If we want to start living in "mob rule" environments where grand juries just start letting people off the hook for laws they don't agree with... might as well just have "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo" or "Civil War 2: 160 and loving it" and get it over with.

Belk · 2025-12-11T19:33:05-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
Proving my point from a different thread from earlier in the week, there are certain jurisdictions where getting an impartial jury is darn near impossible.

If we want to start living in "mob rule" environments where grand juries just start letting people off the hook for laws they don't agree with... might as well just have "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo" or "Civil War 2: 160 and loving it" and get it over with.

Yup. No other possible explanation.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-12-11T19:55:04-0600

Belk said:
Yup. No other possible explanation.

If two jurisdictions produce disparate outcomes for the same offense, then that's not equal application of the law.

That's just mob rule.

If someone in a red state was clearly breaking a law that republicans disagreed with, and it was in a jurisdiction where it's all but guaranteed that you'd get a pro-conservative jury, and they were letting people off he hook for it, that'd be a miscarriage of justice, would it not?

The same people who are throwing a fit about ICE officers wearing masks (because they can't doxx them as easily...and that is why they want to see their face, so they can harass them and their families after the fact, to intimidate them out of enforcing laws they don't like) are letting people off the hook for assaulting them.

If people don't want these kinds of laws enforced (or don't want certain laws to exist), they should try winning elections... as opposed to rallying behind unpopular ideas, and then just refusing to acknowledge laws/procedures after they lose.

If I ran for office on the ideology of "I'm going to make drunk driving legal" and the majority of people understandably voted against me, juries in isolated pockets of the country that would be dumb enough to agree with my idea letting people off the hook for drunk driving isn't "justice".

Trump won largely because of the Immigration issue. The majority of people in the country weren't buying what the democrats were selling on that. Juries in democratic strongholds trying to obstruct that process are no better than the J6 people.

Hans Blaster · 2025-12-11T20:25:50-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
If two jurisdictions produce disparate outcomes for the same offense, then that's not equal application of the law.

Are they? Every legal analysis I have seen of these "assault" cases that have been brought in bulk is that they are weak and overcharged. Under normal circumstances weak cases are dropped or reduced in severity *before* charging (or indictment). But, nothing here is normal and in some juridictions where there have been these large deployments of ICE/CBP personnel very publicly, the US Attorney on orders from the AG have been extremely aggressive on charging very minor crimes.

ThatRobGuy said:
That's just mob rule.

If someone in a red state was clearly breaking a law that republicans disagreed with, and it was in a jurisdiction where it's all but guaranteed that you'd get a pro-conservative jury, and they were letting people off he hook for it, that'd be a miscarriage of justice, would it not?

The same people who are throwing a fit about ICE officers wearing masks (because they can't doxx them as easily...and that is why they want to see their face, so they can harass them and their families after the fact, to intimidate them out of enforcing laws they don't like) are letting people off the hook for assaulting them.

If people don't want these kinds of laws enforced (or don't want certain laws to exist), they should try winning elections... as opposed to rallying behind unpopular ideas, and then just refusing to acknowledge laws/procedures after they lose.

If I ran for office on the ideology of "I'm going to make drunk driving legal" and the majority of people understandably voted against me, juries in isolated pockets of the country that would be dumb enough to agree with my idea letting people off the hook for drunk driving isn't "justice".

Trump won largely because of the Immigration issue. The majority of people in the country weren't buying what the democrats were selling on that. Juries in democratic strongholds trying to obstruct that process are no better than the J6 people.

Here is our challenge: Find a federal court district where minor assault charges are successfully indicted in a "red area". (Ones where these charges have failed include CDCA, DDC, NDIL.)

Belk · 2025-12-11T21:03:56-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
If two jurisdictions produce disparate outcomes for the same offense, then that's not equal application of the law.

That's just mob rule.

If someone in a red state was clearly breaking a law that republicans disagreed with, and it was in a jurisdiction where it's all but guaranteed that you'd get a pro-conservative jury, and they were letting people off he hook for it, that'd be a miscarriage of justice, would it not?

The same people who are throwing a fit about ICE officers wearing masks (because they can't doxx them as easily...and that is why they want to see their face, so they can harass them and their families after the fact, to intimidate them out of enforcing laws they don't like) are letting people off the hook for assaulting them.

If people don't want these kinds of laws enforced (or don't want certain laws to exist), they should try winning elections... as opposed to rallying behind unpopular ideas, and then just refusing to acknowledge laws/procedures after they lose.

If I ran for office on the ideology of "I'm going to make drunk driving legal" and the majority of people understandably voted against me, juries in isolated pockets of the country that would be dumb enough to agree with my idea letting people off the hook for drunk driving isn't "justice".

Trump won largely because of the Immigration issue. The majority of people in the country weren't buying what the democrats were selling on that. Juries in democratic strongholds trying to obstruct that process are no better than the J6 people.

Wow, that is a whole lot of words to pack in "My assumptions are proved by a single case".

Richard T · 2025-12-11T21:45:48-0600

essentialsaltes said:
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is no stranger to losing grand jury cases, but now that federal agents have moved into Chicago, prosecutors there are being blocked from prosecutions, too.

The first time it happened in November, a magistrate judge said that until recently, he'd only ever heard of a grand jury rejecting a prosecution once in the "early part of this century." Now it's happened three times in the past few months.

Nathan Griffin, who is a manager of the Lake View comedy club, the Laugh Factory, was accused of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was involved in the operation. He was accused of trying to shut a car door when the agent was getting out of the car.

While grand juries have cleared three people, at least 13 defendants have had charges against them dropped that are connected to the "Operation Midway Blitz" efforts.

Thus far, prosecutors have not secured a single conviction of individuals arrested for charges connected to "Midway Blitz," the report said.

I guess that is the right of every grand jury. Same as the right of every President to pardon. If some charges are brought in any ICE case, at some point we will likely see some jury nullification. Given that ICE has been caught lying before and that they have over-aggressive agents and mandates at times, I think we can expect more of this.

Richard T · 2025-12-11T22:08:31-0600

I

Hans Blaster said:
Are they? Every legal analysis I have seen of these "assault" cases that have been brought in bulk is that they are weak and overcharged. Under normal circumstances weak cases are dropped or reduced in severity *before* charging (or indictment). But, nothing here is normal and in some juridictions where there have been these large deployments of ICE/CBP personnel very publicly, the US Attorney on orders from the AG have been extremely aggressive on charging very minor crimes.

Here is our challenge: Find a federal court district where minor assault charges are successfully indicted in a "red area". (Ones where these charges have failed include CDCA, DDC, NDIL.)

Federal Charges must be brought in the same state that the crime was committed. The exception is if crimes crossed state lines. So no grand jury shopping that is out of state.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-12-12T08:57:54-0600

Belk said:
Wow, that is a whole lot of words to pack in "My assumptions are proved by a single case".

It's not just this case though, we've seen numerous erosions in the past decade or two.

We've seen things from the right like:
The storming of the capitol building due to not liking election outcomes
Red county sheriffs brazenly saying they're not going to enforce new gun laws passed in blue states (Oregon)
Sketchy redistricting plans to carve out fresh seats (which then sparked a tit-for-tat battle with Cali)

We've seen things from the left like:
Prosecutors using "discretion" to preemptively announce their refusal to prosecute cases for new abortion laws they don't like. (Florida)
Juries letting people off the hook (in this case... and there was another case where they let some dude off the hook for stabbing another guy, because the victim used a racial slur after he got stabbed)
The administrative bureaucracy in various federal agencies reaching out to their old bosses to see if there's ways they can obstruct the president's agenda. (WaPo even covered that one, where federal employees were reaching out to their old Obama-era bosses for advice on how to impede Trump's initiatives in his first term)

And both teams have engaged in forum shopping for friendly district courts so that a single judge can halt initiatives in a sweeping fashion when the other team wins...as well as labelling the other "a existential threat to democracy".

We're no longer in an environment where everyone is cool with the "you win some, you lose some...take your lumps and try again in 4 years"

Now it's much more of a
"When we win, we should be able to do whatever we want and foist our positions on everyone with no limits"
"And when we lose, we'll find any shifty way we can to make sure we can do what we want anyway"

For all of the "Democracy is sacred" talk we hear from people, many don't actually believe it. It's "sacred" when they win. When they lose, they look for any way to obstruct and pull any lever they can to avoid the consequences of democracy.

NxNW · 2025-12-12T09:03:13-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
For all of the "Democracy is sacred" talk we hear from people, many don't actually believe it. It's "sacred" when they win. When they lose, they look for any way to obstruct and pull any lever they can to avoid the consequences of democracy.

What does democracy have to do with court proceedings?

ThatRobGuy · 2025-12-12T09:12:40-0600

Richard T said:
Federal Charges must be brought in the same state that the crime was committed. The exception is if crimes crossed state lines. So no grand jury shopping that is out of state.

In these types of cases, even if forum shopping was available, it wouldn't be needed.

It's one of the most blue areas in the country.

So by that very aspect alone, if a republican federal entity is trying to enforce something that democrats are largely against, the odds of getting a balanced jury is going to be extremely difficult.

Especially with a grand jury...because that's not a case where attorneys from two sides of a case get to do screening like they would for a regular jury.

They're selected at a random from a pool of available citizens for a period of time, without knowing what the upcoming cases will be (because obviously nobody can predict what the future will hold)

ThatRobGuy · 2025-12-12T09:30:44-0600

NxNW said:
What does democracy have to do with court proceedings?

The one Oregon example I mentioned earlier.

The people in the state of Oregon voted to pass stronger gun control laws...as is their right.

A ballot measure passed with 61%
A separate traditional legislative bill passed both chambers and was signed by the governor.

Sheriffs and elected prosecutors from red counties preemptively said "Nah, we have no plans of enforcing that"

The same would be true for the 2 Florida prosecutors who announced their refusal to take up any cases involving FL (then, new) abortion restriction laws.

(or, there was that other case where a judge is accused of helping undocumented people sneak out the side door of a court room when ICE was moving in to apprehend)

If the justice/enforcement is system are going to refuse to enforce the laws that a majority of people voted for, then the people are getting robbed of democracy.

Belk · 2025-12-12T10:29:21-0600

ThatRobGuy said:
It's not just this case though, we've seen numerous erosions in the past decade or two.

We've seen things from the right like:
The storming of the capitol building due to not liking election outcomes
Red county sheriffs brazenly saying they're not going to enforce new gun laws passed in blue states (Oregon)
Sketchy redistricting plans to carve out fresh seats (which then sparked a tit-for-tat battle with Cali)

We've seen things from the left like:
Prosecutors using "discretion" to preemptively announce their refusal to prosecute cases for new abortion laws they don't like. (Florida)
Juries letting people off the hook (in this case... and there was another case where they let some dude off the hook for stabbing another guy, because the victim used a racial slur after he got stabbed)
The administrative bureaucracy in various federal agencies reaching out to their old bosses to see if there's ways they can obstruct the president's agenda. (WaPo even covered that one, where federal employees were reaching out to their old Obama-era bosses for advice on how to impede Trump's initiatives in his first term)

And both teams have engaged in forum shopping for friendly district courts so that a single judge can halt initiatives in a sweeping fashion when the other team wins...as well as labelling the other "a existential threat to democracy".

We're no longer in an environment where everyone is cool with the "you win some, you lose some...take your lumps and try again in 4 years"

Now it's much more of a
"When we win, we should be able to do whatever we want and foist our positions on everyone with no limits"
"And when we lose, we'll find any shifty way we can to make sure we can do what we want anyway"

For all of the "Democracy is sacred" talk we hear from people, many don't actually believe it. It's "sacred" when they win. When they lose, they look for any way to obstruct and pull any lever they can to avoid the consequences of democracy.

Fair, those are valid concerns, but it is not a new phenomenon. It is also not proof against the safeguards we have built into our judicial system. The bigger item of concern to my mind is the increasingly limited jury pool as citizens attempt to bypass the process in order to not participate. I think the idea that we have somehow reached a critical mass where jury nullification will be the norm or even prevalent is a valid conclusion.

Federal grand juries in Chicago are also rejecting Trump's Justice Department

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