Dem
50
Ties
1
GOP
49
As everyone knows, Jeanine Pirro is in the doghouse because she told the truth in court about the reflecting pool mess. In a very thorough brief, she explained what everyone already knew: The damage to the reflecting pool was not the work of vandals (or the indicted defendants), but was instead due to a shoddy and rushed installation and a Trump excursion in the Beast over the liner before it was fully cured.
To appease her master, she has now, to great fanfare, set up what's called a "special grand jury" to manufacture a case do some investigative work on an as-yet unnamed subject. It sure sounds big and important, but a special grand jury is actually not all that special. It's mostly used in larger cities to work on complex criminal cases involving organized crime or corporate corruption. Hey, maybe she's investigating Trump! (Pause for laughter.) A special grand jury was, for example, convened in Houston 20 years ago to investigate Enron, the energy company that was part of a massive fraud.
Special grand juries can sit for longer periods of time than regular grand juries to ensure continuity and limit delays for those larger and more complex criminal cases. It's unusual to have a special grand jury in D.C., because the district is small and those large cases are not typically run out of the jurisdiction.
The special grand jury project is being overseen by Steven Vandervelden, a former dance photographer who tried and failed to indict the six sitting lawmakers who accurately told military personnel that they can (and are arguably obligated to) disobey illegal orders. A special grand jury can issue a report even if they don't bring an indictment, so perhaps Pirro and friends are thinking they can smear a few people Trump hates and that will make him like her again.
The legal standard that must be met for issuing a report is a "preponderance of the evidence," which is a lower standard than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction. But there are very strict rules and procedures when it comes to these grand juries and issuing any reports. For example, the grand jury has to be investigating some legitimate criminal wrongdoing and a majority must agree to issue a report. Anyone named in the report has a right to respond and present witnesses in their defense. And a judge must sign off on it to ensure that the legal requirements are met. In D.C., that judge is Chief Judge James Boasberg, who is very familiar with the shenanigans of Trump's DoJ and will be carefully scrutinizing all aspects of this unusual request. We'll see if just announcing empaneling the special grand jury is enough to get Pirro back in Trump's good graces even if, like most of her other cases, it doesn't go anywhere. (L)