Dem
47
GOP
53
The Fifth Amendment requires that in all federal felony criminal prosecutions, before someone can be put on trial, a grand jury must indict the person. This is a safeguard to prevent the government from just putting people on trial because some government official doesn't like them. It is a widely accepted bit of wisdom that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor asks for it. This is because the prosecutor gets to tell the grand jury the prosecution's side of the story, but the defendant is not there and can't say "I have airline boarding passes, stamps in my passport, and four witnesses saying I was in France when the murder was committed in California. All you have is one elderly witness with vision problems who says he saw someone who also had red hair and a beard near the scene of the crime."
But now, Donald Trump is making grand juries relevant again. In some cases, the evidence against people he wants to put in prison is so weak, grand juries are balking and refusing to indict. This is practically unheard of. Although MGJGA is hard to pronounce, it is a thing, thanks to Donald Trump.
Grand juries operate in absolute secrecy, and they don't need a unanimous decision to indict. A simple majority of the 16 to 23 grand jurors is enough. Nevertheless, since some of the prosecutions Trump wants are so obviously bogus, the grand juries are starting to return "no true bill" (no indictment) as the result, including cases in Alexandria, Chicago, D.C., Los Angeles, and Norfolk. Liz Oyer, a pardon attorney in the Biden administration, said: "When we see things like grand juries voting not to return an indictment, it is an important reminder that we, the citizens, all have power to resist and push back and to save our democracy."
Part of the reason for all the no true bills is the incompetence of some of Trump's appointments. Alina Habba, Lindsey Halligan and Jeanine Pirro have no business being U.S. attorneys, so the ham sandwiches are resting easy. In Los Angeles, the top prosecutor, Bill Essayli, has gotten indictments on fewer than a quarter of the immigration cases he has brought. So at least one small part of the fabled checks and balances is actually working. (V)