Jeanine Pirro notches another well-deserved loss

It’s another red-letter day for Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the district of Washington, D.C. Most prosecutors go their whole careers without ever getting no-billed, the fancy legal term for when a grand jury tells a prosecutor to pound sand. Pirro, however, has been no-billed numerous times.

On Tuesday, Pirro’s losing streak stayed winning. A grand jury declined to indict six congressional Democrats for telling military personnel that they have the duty to refuse illegal orders. 

Of course, that’s not remotely a crime. Indeed, service members pledge an oath to the Constitution, not President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete “Whiskey” Hegseth, or anyone else. It’s such a basic thing that the military’s Rules for Courts-Martial explain that an order is lawful “unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it.”

Despite this, Pirro seemingly thought, “What the hell, let’s go for it,” and tried to indict all six Democrats. 

To be scrupulously fair to Pirro, she apparently didn’t personally fail at this task. Rather, the dance photographer did.

Wait, what?

Yes, since many career prosecutors will not touch this sort of case, Pirro reportedly tapped Steven Vandervelden, who had worked for her decades ago as a local prosecutor but now runs a dance photography studio. In fact, on Wednesday, he was still busy posting to his studio’s Instagram account. You will not be surprised to learn that besides being a dance photographer these days, he has no federal prosecutor experience. 

Once again, a grand jury of ordinary citizens stood fast and stopped Pirro—and Vandervelden, apparently. And yet, while it is absolutely appropriate to laud them for that, those ordinary citizens aren’t supposed to be the line of defense here—Pirro is.

Her job as a prosecutor is not to bring any charge Trump tells her to, nor is it to bring any charge she feels like, nor even to bring any charge that law enforcement would like. Prosecutors have an ethical rule that applies to only them, which is that they cannot bring charges that aren’t supported by probable cause. They also can’t take a case to trial that they know is not supported by evidence sufficient to show guilt. 

Since what those six Democratic lawmakers did was simply to state a basic tenet of American military law, and since their speech is also protected by the First Amendment, Pirro knew full well that even if she got an indictment, she could not prove any of these charges at trial. There was no underlying criminal behavior.

Juries are holding the line far and wide, but they’re not supposed to be. They should never have been there in the first place. Ordinary citizens are the very last line of defense, not the first. We’re not supposed to be counting on juries for holding back the rapacious and illegal prosecutions brought by this Department of Justice. Rather, we’re supposed to have a Department of Justice that doesn’t bring illegal prosecutions in the first place. 

The saga may not end here. Pirro has made a habit of bringing misdemeanor charges after she gets rebuffed by grand juries. Sure, she loses out there as well, but that’s not really the point. The point is that people should be free of these malicious and unfounded prosecutions in the first place. 

As Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, one of the six Democrats, put it in a press conference following the news of Pirro’s failure: “This is not a good-news story.” People should not need to rely on juries to save them from their government.

rss@dailykos.com (Lisa Needham)مصدر