By itself, a Washington, D.C., jury’s acquittal of a 37-year-old man of assault for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer isn’t particularly troubling; it’s actually a little funny. But placed into a larger pattern of D.C. jury behavior, it is the latest example of an increasingly partisan jury pool excusing Democrats for offenses that would almost certainly have sent a Republican to jail.
About 20 CBP officers were standing on 14th and U Streets, NW, a popular spot for drinking in D.C., on the night of Aug. 10, not bothering anyone. A man was so offended by the mere presence of immigration law enforcement officers that he started berating them with profanities, calling them “racists” and “fascists.”
The officers behaved professionally and ignored him, but then he petulantly threw a salami sub sandwich at one of them and ran off. He was chased down, taken into custody, and arrested. The U.S. Attorney first charged him with felony assault of a federal agent, but a D.C. grand jury refused even to indict him (So much for the theory that a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich!). The U.S. Attorney then downgraded the charge to misdemeanor assault, which does not require a grand jury indictment. But after a brief trial, the D.C. jury refused to convict the defendant even though throwing a sandwich at a person is textbook misdemeanor assault.
The sandwich thrower’s acquittal comes a month after another D.C. jury cleared a woman of the same misdemeanor charge, assaulting a federal agent, even though she injured a female FBI agent while attempting to interfere with the arrest of an illegal immigrant.
It appears to be open season on officers trying to enforce immigration law in D.C.
If the issue of juries primarily made up of Democrats letting other Democrats get away with crimes were limited to immigration, it would be concerning enough, but it is more general than that.
Consider the case of Michael Sussmann, a campaign lawyer for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was charged with lying to the FBI about his role in pushing the now-discredited Trump-Russia collusion narrative. Prosecutors presented text messages proving Sussmann told the FBI he wasn’t acting “on behalf of any client,” even though he later billed the client, which was Clinton’s presidential campaign. In any other jurisdiction, such direct evidence would have been decisive. But in D.C., where nearly every juror admitted to voting for former President Joe Biden, the jury deliberated for just six hours before declaring him not guilty — a verdict that seemed to say crimes committed with partisan motives are excusable when aimed at Republicans.
Then there was Greg Craig, a high-profile Democratic lawyer and former President Barack Obama’s White House counsel, who faced charges for misleading the Justice Department about his work for the pro-Russia Ukrainian government that employed Paul Manafort. The evidence showed Craig had helped craft a report meant to whitewash the Ukrainian regime’s prosecution of an opposition leader — and that he had lied about it to avoid registering as a foreign agent. Yet a D.C. jury again refused to convict, deciding that a well-connected Democrat deserved the benefit of the doubt that President Donald Trump’s allies never receive in that same courthouse.
Finally, Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer who literally altered an email to justify spying on a Trump campaign adviser, escaped with no jail time. Although he pleaded guilty, his sentencing judge — another Democrat, naturally — accepted the argument that Clinesmith’s forgery was just a “mistake” born of political pressure, not malice.
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Compare that to the yearslong prison terms handed down to Trumpworld figures for far lesser process crimes, and the pattern is undeniable. In Washington, Democrats have license to commit crimes as long as the victims are law enforcement officers or Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans get the book thrown at them for even the most minor offenses.
A jury pool drawn almost entirely from one party cannot credibly deliver equal justice under law. When jurors treat crimes differently according to partisan political leanings, the rule of law erodes — and the public loses faith that the justice system can be fair, impartial, or worthy of the Constitution it serves.