{"id":195227,"date":"2025-09-02T22:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T22:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/195227\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T22:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T22:35:09","slug":"grand-jurors-refuse-to-indict-2-accused-of-threatening-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/195227\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand jurors refuse to indict 2 accused of threatening Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal grand jurors in the nation\u2019s capital have refused to indict two people who were charged separately with threatening to kill President Donald Trump<\/a>, more evidence of a growing backlash against Trump\u2019s law enforcement intervention in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

It is extraordinarily rare for a grand jury to balk at returning an indictment, but it has happened at least seven times in five cases since Trump last month ordered a surge in patrols by federal agents and troops in the District of Columbia. One of the instances involved the case against a man charged with hurling a sandwich at a federal agent.<\/p>\n

The latest example occurred Tuesday, when Justice Department prosecutors told a magistrate judge that a grand jury declined to indict Edward Alexander Dana<\/a>. He is accused of making a death threat against Trump while in police custody on Aug. 17. Dana also told police that he was intoxicated that night. <\/p>\n

Grand jurors also refused to hand up an indictment against Nathalie Rose Jones<\/a>, who was arrested Aug. 16 in Washington on charges that she made death threats against Trump on social media and during an interview with Secret Service agents. Jones\u2019 attorney disclosed the decision in a court filing Monday.<\/p>\n

Dana\u2019s lawyer, Elizabeth Mullin, said she has never seen anything like this in over 20 years as a public defender in Washington. She said prosecutors are responding to Trump\u2019s surge by bringing \u201cweak cases\u201d that don\u2019t belong in federal court.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the grand juries are seeing through it,\u201d Mullin said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge waste in resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whom Trump appointed to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, said a grand jury\u2019s refusal to indict somebody for threatening to kill the president \u201cis the essence of a politicized jury.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system here is broken on many levels,\u201d Pirro said in a statement. \u201cInstead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in DC refuses to even let the judicial process begin. Justice should not depend on politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, a grand jury refused to indict a government attorney who was facing a felony assault charge for throwing a \u201csub-style\u201d sandwich<\/a> at a Customs and Border Protection agent \u2014 a confrontation captured on a viral video.<\/p>\n

Three grand juries voted separately against indicting a woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent<\/a> outside the city\u2019s jail in July, where she was recording video of the transfer of inmates into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.<\/p>\n

A grand jury also rejected an indictment against a man who was arrested on an assault charge<\/a> by a U.S. Park Police officer with the assistance of National Guard members.<\/p>\n

Grand jury proceedings are secret, so the reasons for their decisions don\u2019t become public. But the string of rebukes has fueled speculation that residents serving on grand juries are using their votes to protest against the White House\u2019s surge.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrand juries, judges, we will not simply go along with the flow,\u201d U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said during a hearing last week for a surge-related criminal case.<\/p>\n

Dana was arrested on suspicion of damaging a light fixture at a restaurant. An officer was driving Dana to a police station when he threatened to kill Trump, according to a Secret Service agent\u2019s affidavit. The officer\u2019s body camera captured Dana saying he was \u201cnot going to tolerate fascism\u201d and would \u201cprotect the Constitution by any means necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that means killing you, officer, killing the president, killing anyone who stands in the way of our Constitution,\u201d he said, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Jones, 50, of Lafayette, Indiana, posted a Aug. 6 message on Facebook that she was \u201cwilling to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea.\u201d When Secret Service agents questioned her on Aug. 15, Jones said she hoped to peacefully remove Trump from office but \u201cwill kill him out at the compound if I have to,\u201d according to prosecutors<\/a>. Jones was arrested a day later in Washington, where she joined a protest near the White House.<\/p>\n

Petras said Jones repeatedly told Secret Service agents that she had no intent to harm anyone, didn\u2019t own any weapons and went to Washington to peacefully protest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Federal grand jurors in the nation\u2019s capital have refused to indict two people who were…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[12785,84,69,108706,101227,57,6323,2862,4228,101226,12588,2936,108705,50,80,61,45318,67,132,68,93,101228],"class_list":{"0":"post-195227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-dc-wire","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-edward-alexander-dana","13":"tag-elizabeth-mullin","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-in-state-wire","16":"tag-indiana","17":"tag-indictments","18":"tag-jeanine-pirro","19":"tag-juries","20":"tag-law-enforcement","21":"tag-nathalie-rose-jones","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-u-s-news","25":"tag-u-s-secret-service","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-washington-news","30":"tag-zia-faruqui"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115137093834220089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}