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Happy Presidents’ Day. Officially designated as George Washington’s birthday, it’s the day we celebrate American presidents. Instead of just being another Monday off, this would be a good year to reflect on the qualities we value in our leaders.
They do not include appointing cabinet secretaries whose utter lack of competence leads to shutting down U.S. airspace for no reason.
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Or this, in New Jersey.
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Last month, when ICE surged in Maine, I was able to participate in some of the Know Your Rights training offered by the ACLU. During that session, a school bus driver asked for detailed instructions for checking search warrants for lawfulness and understanding his ability to protect students. It was heart-wrenching. The current president, whose time in office I won’t be celebrating tomorrow, the one who promised to remove what he called “the worst of the worst” from American streets, has instead been terrorizing school kids and using law enforcement resources to arrest hardworking parents with terminally ill kids, like Ruben Torres Maldonado.
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Trump leads an administration that has killed two American citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights. It has harmed countless other people, while arresting grandmothers, five-year-olds, and many whose presence in this country, though undocumented, largely benefits America. What would the Founding Fathers make of the president who is leading the country as we approach our 250th anniversary? Undoubtedly, they would see nothing in him to celebrate.
Will DOJ Try to Indict a Bad Case Again After Failing?
Last Tuesday, a grand jury in the District of Columbia declined to indict six members of Congress who made a video advising members of the military they didn’t have to, and shouldn’t follow, illegal orders. Although it happens very rarely, proposed indictments do fail because not enough grand jurors vote in their favor. Here, multiple news outlets reported that not a single grand juror voted for the indictment. That’s extraordinary.
It’s easy to understand why—six lawmakers doing their jobs isn’t exactly a federal crime. Prosecutors suggested that they violated a law that prohibits interference with the loyalty, morale, or discipline of the armed forces. The grand jury saw straight through that.
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There weren’t any career federal prosecutors involved in the attempt, just U.S. Attorney and former Fox host Jeannie Pirro and two of her “special counsels,” Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden. They work in Pirro’s front office, one handling policy and legislative affairs and the other as director of external affairs. They are not the kind of folks you’d expect to see handling the indictment of six members of Congress. The ABA Journal explained that Vandervelden, who “operates a photography studio and has no federal prosecution experience, was hired by Pirro to help secure indictments, along with another lawyer. Vandervelden operates a dance photography studio but had previously worked with Pirro as a prosecutor in Westchester County, New York.”
But when the president of the United States is outraged by lawmakers’ exercise of their First Amendment rights, this Justice Department jumps up to salute. The question, as we enter the week ahead, is whether they will try to indict again after this miserable, failed attempt.
Elissa Slotkin, the Michigan Senator who was one of DOJ’s targets, is represented by my podcast cohost Preet Bharara. He wrote to AG Pam Bondi and Pirro that, in the wake of the grand jury’s decision, “continuing to pursue this matter would violate clear ethical duties and Justice Department policy.” As the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for eight years during the Obama administration, he’s in a position to know. “Members of the military have a duty not to follow unlawful orders, and reminding them of that duty is no crime. The only responsible course is to respect the grand jury’s decision and immediately close the investigation of Senator Slotkin.”
Preet’s letter asked DOJ to confirm, by the close of business last Friday, that the investigation, at least as to his client, had been closed.