Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. have faced repeated refusals by local federal grand juries to return indictments. A recent case involved Nathalie Rose Jones, charged with threatening the president and transmitting threats in interstate commerce, where a grand jury returned no bill. Secret Service agents encountered Jones in New York; she said she planned to attend a protest, was not arrested, and later met agents in D.C., denying intent to harm and consenting to searches. She had no weapons and claimed to attend a peaceful demonstration. A magistrate initially detained her, then a judge released her to home detention; her lawyers now move for full release citing weak evidence.
The latest example came Monday, when defense attorneys for Nathalie Rose Jones, a woman accused of threatening Trump online, filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, noting that a grand jury had returned "no bill." Jones had been charged under two federal statutes: making threats against the president and transmitting threats in interstate commerce.
However, in their filing, attorneys from the Federal Public Defender's Office presented a remarkable picture: when Secret Service agents first approached Jones at her New York apartment on August 15, she told them she planned to attend a protest in Washington. They neither arrested her nor discouraged her from traveling. The following day, she met with agents in D.C., repeated that she had "no intent to harm anyone, including the president," and even consented to searches of her car and her mental health records, lawyers wrote.
Collection
[
|
...
]