Sandwich Bro might beat the felony charges, y’all! (NYT)
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to secure a felony assault indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington was the second time in recent days that it was unable to persuade grand jurors to bring an indictment in a felony assault case against a federal agent. And it amounted to a sharp rebuke by ordinary citizens against the team of prosecutors who are dealing with the fallout from President Trump’s move to send National Guard troops and federal agents into the city on patrol.
The rejection by grand jurors was particularly noteworthy given the attention paid to the case. Video of the episode went viral on social media, senior officials talked about the case, and the administration posted footage of a large group of heavily armed law enforcement officers going to the apartment of the man, Sean C. Dunn, to arrest him.
This is the U.S. attorney’s office currently headed by braying former Fox News personality Jeanine (*hic*) Pirro, a thoroughly corrupt and incompetent clown who is allegedly fond of boxed wine, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
More from the Times:
It is extremely unusual for prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining an indictment because they are in control of the information that grand jurors hear about a case and defendants are not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as evidence is presented.
But Mr. Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal crimes that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
It has also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors, who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce the charges that defendants were facing in recent days.
The article also says the clock is ticking on the hoagie hurler case — prosecutors have 30 days to secure a grand jury indictment. If they can’t, they have to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor or dismiss them.
Speaking of corrupt, incompetent clowns: (NPR)
A whistleblower says that a former senior DOGE official now at the Social Security Administration copied the Social Security numbers, names and birthdays of over 300 million Americans to a private section of the agency’s cloud. That private cloud environment is accessible by other former DOGE employees at the SSA and is lacking adequate security, the whistleblower claims, potentially putting an enormous amount of private information at risk to being revealed and possibly used by identity thieves.
In a written complaint filed through the nonprofit Government Accountability Project, Charles Borges, the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration, claims that senior Trump appointees at the SSA who were recently part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team made the copy in a way that “constitute[s] violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety.”
Borges says that career cybersecurity officials within the SSA described the decision to copy the data as “very high risk” and even discussed the possibility of having to reissue Social Security numbers to millions of Americans in the event the cloud server was breached.
These fucking DOGE dipshits need to be held accountable for their carelessness and crimes if voters get a chance to stand up a functional government again. I’ve heard a couple of elected Democrats say there will be no “look forward, not backward.” That’s the spirit!
Open thread!
Baud
The grand jury requirement had largely been a forgotten protection. Not anymore!
Maybe the Third Amendment will also get a workout under Trump.
Mr. Bemused Senior
If only they had aimed to indict the sandwich…
I’ll let myself out.
MattF
I’m guessing that we’ll soon have an executive order imposing the death penalty for disorderly conduct.
dmsilev
For the sake of legal tradition, I do hope that it was a ham sandwich.
Jackie
So, did the 30 days to start a GJ indictment clock begin last week? (Or whenever the hell the sandwich was thrown – FFOTUS Time has my days/weeks/months messed up Biggly)
Scout211
In other weird news,
Professor Bigfoot
A competent prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
Or so I’ve been told.
la caterina
@Professor Bigfoot: Exactemente!
twbrandt
It was a cheesy charge to begin with, but he beat the wrap.
Mr. Bemused Senior
TPM called it “assault with a deli weapon.”
Scout211
And also too, Alina Habba in New Jersey.
. . .
. . .
Snarki, child of Loki
IANAL, but I’ve heard that a Grand Jury, when started, can decide *NOT* to give the prosecutor all that GJ subpoena power.
Which causes prosecutors to whine and bitch and moan, but tough shit.
THEN the GJ can subpoena whoever they want, like, I dunno “Big Balls” or “Tiny Hands”, and issue the indictments they want. It’s called a “rogue grand jury”, and it’s about time we had some.
Jackie
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I’ve heard assault with a CLUB sandwich.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Jackie: if he had thrown a pack of cards perhaps they could have cited 13 counts.
Chief Oshkosh
@Scout211: This follows France summoning the US embassador (Jared Kushner’s pere and a career criminal) for trying to influence French policy in regard to Bibi’s genocide.
What’s next? We don’t even have ambassadors for Germany and Spain. I guess Italy could summon Fertitta for just being an all-around Texas asshole (airmail.news/issues/2025-7-26/diary-of-a-foreigner-in-rome).
Gin & Tonic
It seems like the (major) Ryazan-Moscow oil pipeline has exploded and is burning. I bet someone was careless with a cigarette again.
MattF
And… there was also that (reported) three hour+ televised ‘cabinet meeting’ where no one got indicted for utterly shameless ass-licking. Where’s that Grand Jury when you need one?
becca
I served on a federal grand jury in Memphis years ago. We had a very well respected US attorney here then, can’t remember his name.
What stands out in my memory about my two year stint as a grand juror is that we never turned down an indictment. Not one. They told us they would never bring a case to us that would not meet the basic elements. And they didn’t. True bill, every time . Everybody joked about being able to indict a “ham sandwich “ a la Ken Starr, and felt a bit rubber stampy, but it’s quite straightforward. Long-winded way of saying only a fool prosecutor would do what these guys are doing today.
.
Gin & Tonic
I wonder how much of the decision to stop work on the Revolution Wind project was based on the fact it’s 50% owned by a Danish company.
sab
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I thought the same thing!
Gloria DryGarden
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I wonder if anyone will follow suit?
Jackie
Oh jeezus…
More faux gold cherubs…
Mr. Bemused Senior
@MattF: There’s no law against being a simpering toady.
Steve LaBonne
Trump issues executive order purporting to abolish grand juries in 3,2,1…
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: I kind of expected them to dynamite the tracks and announce that Amtrak is canceled.
suzanne
Fuck yes.
Being nice and agreeable has literally never worked to our advantage.
Mr. Bemused Senior
These people have no finesse.
frosty
@twbrandt: See yourself out.
Librettist
@Matt McIrvin:
Starve Amtrak for operating subsidies, and bust out the real estate.
rikyrah
glad that we are catching these clowns earlier
TrumpsTaxes (@trumpstaxes.com on bsky)
@TrumpsTaxes
For those familiar with Mike Lawler and #NY17 politics, this is VERY shady stuff.
A new candidate – John Cappello – has joined the Dem primary here.
The only problem: Until a few days ago he was a registered Republican.
THREAD…
x.com/TrumpsTaxes/status/1960371530925318496
Librettist
Toadies gonna toady. Why take a chance and dump the case? You never know when the Swiss cheese holes in his brain will line up and he’ll start in on it again.
rikyrah
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/minnesota-governor-says-shooting-occurred-142429758.html
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A shooting occurred Wednesday during the first week of classes at a Minneapolis Catholic school, the Minnesota governor and authorities said. There was no immediate information on any injuries.
Gov. Tim Waltz said on social media that he had been briefed on a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School.
“I’m praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence,” Waltz wrote on X.
Elizabelle
They’re already decimating the military and agency leadership, looking to install toadies who will follow illegal orders.
Good to see that a DC Grand Jury saw these pathetic cases for what they were.
Librettist
Grinder, Sub, Submarine, Hero, these were all indictable. A Hoagie was never going to pass legal mustard.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: You’d think the AP would know how to spell the governor’s name.
Elizabelle
Incidentally, Virginia early in person voting begins on Friday, September 19. Through November 1.
Counting the days.
matt
Yeah, I’m more in a ‘look backward, and kill kill kill’ kind of mood.
bjacques
@Librettist: The Grand Jury is holding out for a hero.
Speaking of ticking clocks, will the National Guard deployment end at 29 days in order to stiff the troops like in LA?
snoey
@dmsilev: Sadly, the Wapo reported salami.
la caterina
@Librettist: The Hoagie never had a chance to ketchup
WereBear
YES
Betty
It sounds trite, but this administration is a clown show at every level. That doesn’t mean it isn’t profoundly dangerous. Will the MSM start reporting on it accurately before it’s too late?
WereBear
@Baud: He’s going after EVERYTHING.
Narcissists have a very ugly glide path as they age, especially since they rely on intimidation and the appearance of confidence and power.
Scout211
It has been corrected.
The latest: AP
WereBear
@Professor Bigfoot: A quip by a New York judge!
gene108
I wonder how many actual violent criminals are going to skate because of the incompetent people Trump has staffed the DOJ with?
I hope every DOGE staffer who broke security rules, and all those motherfuckers on the Signal chat with the journalist get their assess handed to them by the next Democratic president. Folks have spent years in prison for lesser security violations.
WereBear
Was this covered previously? Trump has declared women can’t have credit cards any more?
They really do want to crash the economy :)
So okay. I’ll stop paying them.
JPL
@Betty: no
WereBear
No. SATSQ. :)
They are corporate media. Not journalists.
la caterina
@WereBear: Do you know which NY judge?
WereBear
@gene108: I keep saying that FBI guy got life for his crimes.
Kelly
@becca: I served on a county Grand Jury. We true billed everything. The prosecutors were well organized and the cases were straightforward. The only time I hesitated was a felony charge of spitting on a cop. Turns out Oregon has a felony on the books for spitting on a cop. The charge was part of a list that included violence.
coin operated
@WereBear:
got link?
WereBear
@la caterina: Sol Wachtler, a former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.
Fell to scandal, probably because he was prescribed amphetamines, and not properly supervised. Went manic.
So I still have a soft spot for the man. He did a lot of good before that.
WereBear
@coin operated:
Trump Executive Order Raises Alarm Over Women’s Financial Independence
cain
@Jackie: I bet /r/conservative is just really happy about this! Feels like communism at this point, doesn’t it? :D
coin operated
@WereBear: Much obliged
sab
@WereBear: I am so old that I remember when I couldn’t get a credit card because I didn’t have a spouse.
Jackie
@Scout211:
The school is K – 8th grade.
jonas
No.
cain
@WereBear:
Also weaponized against immigrants too.
Steve LaBonne
@WereBear: Denying women access to their own money is literally one of the first things the theocratic government does in The Handmaid’s Tale. We’re even getting the same the bullshit about women not having enough babies. The book isn’t supposed to be an instruction manual, motherfuckers.
Steve LaBonne
@jonas: For all values of “it”.
cain
Can’t wait to see what kind of messaging is going to come out of this from the Trump administration.
kindness
In the northern suburbs of NYC we called hoagies ‘wedges’. Apparently it started in Yonkers years ago and kind of spread north & east. Now it’d be really entertaining if we could wedge ‘wedge’ into the discussion.
Jackie
@sab:
My dad had to co-sign for me to get a credit card. 1974. I wasn’t married either.
Jerszy
Apparently the GJ decided that Sandwich Guy was simply hot-dogging.
Omnes Omnibus
Reminder for everyone: Executive Orders are not law.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@cain:
r/conservative is like North Korea. I heard they were doing interviews on Discord with the sub’s mods for anyone who wanted to be a commenter these days, which is just WTF
Ever heard of r/AmericaBad? It used to be about making fun of ignorant things non-Americans would say about the US and Americans (“Why do Americans build wood houses in Tornado Alley and not solid brick/stone houses that are several hundred years old that we live in here in Europe? Are they stupid?”), but lately it’s been a lot of defensiveness about the US government’s policies.
They downplay and minimize foreign traveler’s fears of being harassed/detained by Customs and Border Protection (“It only happens to people who don’t have their papers in order and anyway you can just sue them!”) and Trump’s threats of invading Canada/Greenland (He doesn’t really mean it, you can’t take what Trump says seriously, etc). The recent revelations of covert influence operations in Greenland connected to Trump shows these fears to be well-founded
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: But they can effectively block enforcement of Federal law. Laws aren’t self-enforcing.
Belafon
This just kills me:
As if somehow going to his apartment the next day with a big group negates the fact that they already arrested him on the street the night before.
jimmiraybob
Do we even know if the sandwich was loaded? For all we know it could have just been American cheese slices with a light dab of mayo. What Grand Jury would consider this loaded?
la caterina
@WereBear: Thanks! I thought it might have been Sol Wachtler.
Eunicecycle
@sab: that happened to me, too. My dad had to sign for me. At the time I was living in a different city, with a full time job. But my dad had to sign.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: Laws aren’t self-enforcing? Wow, I never knew that. JFC, the fact that they aren’t laws matters. It gives people fighting against the application of an EO a strong case in court. And that’s just for starters. We all need to remember that government by royal decree is not our system. Can someone strong arm it for a bit? Well, it seems so, but that does not make it legitimate.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: Again, the problem is that the Federal government will not take action against financial institutions that reinstitute bad old policies, forcing individuals to pay for legal representation to try to fight them. This is a very serious problem, and a serious dimunition of rights, and should not be downplayed.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
This law allows for private lawsuits, so the neglect of the feds won’t have such a severe impact.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Says a man, who will not have consider spending a lot of money on a lawyer to enforce legal rights that the government is no longer willing to enforce. As well as taking a chance on drawing a Federalist Society hack judge. I don’t know what this impulse is to downplay the badness of really bad stuff.
trnc
@Scout211:
Seems like a step up from an Asst AG interviewing federal inmates in which he had zero involvement.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Steve talks about lawsuits being allowed. The problem is that litigation will cost a lot of money, something most people don’t have a lot of
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: I know it is a serious matter. And I am not going to talk about legal aid organizations or pro bono lawsuits since this will be dismissed as making light of the situation. I will say that if you don’t understand that EOs not being laws is important, I will say that you are missing the point. A realistic analysis has to take into account both good and bad things.
Scout211
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The law allows for attorney fees and class actions and denying credit on the basis of sex is a clear violation. Finding lawyers won’t be a problem. It’s not downplaying anything to give people an accurate picture. There’s lots of damage federal non-emforcement can do for which there is no private remedy. This isn’t in that category.
Steve LaBonne
@Omnes Omnibus: Stop being a condescending ass, everyone around here knows what an executive order is and isn’t. We also know that however illegal, under this regime they will be obeyed by Federal employees who want to keep their jobs.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: If you can’t see the big difference between the Federal government affirmatively going after companies that violate the law, and individuals having to take that task on themselves, there is no point in talking to you.
Matt McIrvin
@Librettist: Before Amtrak nationalized passenger rail, our freight railroads had a federal mandate to carry passengers. They hated it, of course, since they were usually losing money on the service.
Once that was lifted, they generally got rid of any infrastructure that was required only for passenger service. Many double-tracked routes went to a single track, since freight isn’t as time-critical and it’s fine if you have trains waiting off on a siding for a train to pass in the other direction. And then they sold off the extra land required for the second track, so they couldn’t restore that service even if they wanted to.
To this day, the US actually has pretty good freight rail infrastructure; it’s just passenger rail that sucks, because in most of the country it can’t be run at a profit and we collectively decided it’s not a vital public utility (but the interstate highways apparently are).
Scout211
And stop name-calling and personal insults, please. This is a violation of policy here.
EarthWindFire
@Baud: We can file private lawsuits. As a woman who is my family’s primary breadwinner, this does not reassure me. Gosh, I’ll only have to spend a few extra thousand dollars in attorney’s fees if I have a major home or car repair or maybe I can just forgo the loan and drain my savings account. That this outcome is even on the table makes my blood boil.
That’s usually tone deaf for such a great presidential candidate. Are you sitting out 2028?
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: How do you know that Baud will never have to do that. Just because someone is a lawyer doesn’t mean that they are able to handle any and all legal matters.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Then don’t talk to me.
Steve in the ATL
Translation: stop being you!
Baud
@EarthWindFire:
No, you won’t. If a private credit card company decides to require a man’s signature before giving a woman credit, then lawyer’s will work that case for free. And it won’t come to that because these companies have lawyers that will tell them they will lose a lot of money bigly if they implement such a policy.
Where lack of federal enforcement will hurt is with respect to more hidden methods that companies might use to discriminate, such as algorithms. It’s more difficult for private lawyers to finance and being such cases. But no Republican administration would pursue such a case.
But unless Congress changes the law, the fear described above in this thread where a company adopts a policy of denying credit to women without her husband’s signature is exceedingly low on the list of risks people face
glc
Meanwhile in Los Angeles, an indictment has been refused (“no bill”) by three successive grand juries.
Thought to be an all-time record. The usual standard after one no bill is to withdraw in embarrassment, and after two no bills harakiri is expected.
They can in principle try again on the sandwich case, as many times as they like. There are no rules against it other than a sense of propriety.
It is said that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, so they should perhaps drop the case against the dreaded sandwich hurler and go for the sandwich instead.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I got in drunken argument with a fellow officer in the army that almost came to blows. As we were “stepping outside”, he told me that I was arrogant and condescending. I replied that he was an obnoxious asshole (he was from NJ and a Fiji from LaFayette). We both stopped and said “Well, yeah”. We were good friend from then on.
tam1MI
@Omnes Omnibus: Reminder for everyone: Executive Orders are not law.
Also, I am seeing a lot of “could”, “mights”, and “maybes” in the linked article and not a lot of “wills”.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Scaramouche is giving me a lot of insight into your character!
A friend of mine (who graduated from the Harvard of the Midwest) has written a musical based on it, that’s why I’m reading it. I know I read it when I was a teenager, but I don’t remember a thing.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t stare too long into the abyss.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Oh dear.
Snarki, child of Loki
If you can’t trust the Executive to enforce a law, and you can’t trust the Courts to uphold a law, then all laws need to have a clause: “Any official that violates this law CAN BE SHOT DEAD BY ANYONE, WITHOUT LEGAL CONSEQUENCE, INCLUDING ASSHOLE JUDGES THAT TRY TO EVADE THIS”
Ye Olde Founder Dudes were far too trusting, and should have done this for f’n everything in the Constitution, starting with ‘Emoluments’.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: 😂
WereBear
@Steve LaBonne: Just like their view of 1984. Apparently beloved of the Bush Administration.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Don’t look back into the sun might be better suited.
WereBear
@Omnes Omnibus: But they are warnings.
Omnes Omnibus
@WereBear: Let make this clear. I have never that Trump’s EOs are good thing. I won’t ever say that. They are, in fact, particularly bad because people who should know better are treating as though they are law. I thought that a reminder that are not might be useful. Apparently, I was wrong and offering a factual statement is both condescending and minimizing people’s trauma.
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: One time, I got into a contentious situation over a parking spot with another driver*, to the point that we both had gotten out of our cars. Then I suggested, “Why don’t we flip a coin for it?” We did, I won, and he drove off.
* In Berkeley, it is all about the parking.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: When has a factual statement ever helped anything?
WereBear
@Omnes Omnibus: No worries. You were giving a risk assessment. I took it as a statement of intention and proof of a psychotic mind.
artem1s
@Baud: federal cases means everyone in the country can join the class action lawsuit. this means women have to depend on living in a state that will defend her rights. does that sound like it’s not going to have a severe impact?
Baud
@artem1s:
I don’t understand your question. When it comes to the question of whether a lender can require only women to obtain their husband’s approval to obtain credit, the law is crystal clear. If a lender actually adopted such a policy, the only question is how many lawsuits it would spurn, not where.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Spurn? Come on, man!
robtrim
I live in DC…haven’t seen a Guardsman or loathsome ICE agent or anyone not connected to DC law enforcement (Uniformed SS, Park Police, etc). As for getting DC Grand Jury to indict someone for Trumped up charges, forget it. Grand Juries here are not going to indict DC residents, or anyone else, for giving these Brown Shirts a hard time. The “aging hippies” who make up Grand Juries will refuse 100 percent of the time.
glc
@dmsilev:
To continue in this vein –
wonkette.com/p/us-attorney-boxwine-bad-at-indicting
Unfortunately, they do get as many bites at the sandwich as they like, and a reminder that we do, in theory, have a judicial system.
Steve LaBonne
@artem1s: TIL that there was never any reason for Federal agencies to enforce Federal civil law because affected individuals can just sue and that’s somehow an effective alternative. The fascinating things one learns on BJ!
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I said nothing of the sort.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ugh.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve LaBonne: If that is what you learned, you should consider remedial study. You could have learned that EOs are not laws, but that they can lead to very bad things especially from this administration. Also, you could have learned that the federal government is not the only entity that can seek the enforcement of rights. That being said, it is almost certainly the best one.
You should probably remember that the vast majority of commenters want the same kinds things that you do. Maybe a presumption of good faith might be in order. I get that we are all fucking angry, but the passive aggressive shit in that comment tends to make me want to tell you to fuck off. I won’t. On the other hand, is this the kind of action your UU church of which you are so proud wants to see.
Feel free to pie me.
TEL
While Trump’s EO sucks, as soon as any bank/ credit corporation tried this crap (no credit for women without her husband or father’s approval) they would likely lose so much business so fast that they’d be in damage control mode within 24 hours. I agree with the commenter who said the more dangerous action would be if a company took this EO and chose to mess with the algorithms for determining credit worthiness for women, meaning higher rates and lower limits.
Shana
@Elizabelle: and has already started I believe for the 11th Congressional special election to replace Gerry Connolly. Which is on September 9th
Citizen Alan
@WereBear: Jesus fucking Christ. My RWNJ sister was proud to vote for Shitgibbon. I want to ask her if she’s okay with turning over her credit cards and and all the money she has in separate banking accounts over to her husband so she won’t have to worry her pretty little head about that anymore. She was 13 and I was 5 when our mother, the primary breadwinner in our house, was allowed to have a credit card in her own name. Also, her daughter/my niece just bought a house. I wonder if it will be legal for to do that without a male co-signer ten years from now.
Any woman who votes GOP is a traitor to her gender.
Archon
@Citizen Alan: Turns out a lot of woman will vote for less rights for themselves if it gives their sons, fathers, and husbands more power.
Especially true when factoring in the racial element.
Kayla Rudbek
@matt: we need to teach these people that actions have consequences (or shorter, FAFO)
Kayla Rudbek
@Jackie: my parents last parish before they moved, and a lot of my high school classmates went there