"The effort to jail six Democratic lawmakers for producing a video advising military members not to follow illegal orders (a position that is, notably, not controversial among people who have read the Uniform Code of Military Justice) has now collapsed in humiliating fashion. A grand jury handed Jeanine Pirro a no-bill so emphatic it didn't even produce a single vote to indict. That's... not a close call."
"During the investigation, prosecutors reached out to counsel for the lawmakers as part of follow-up inquiries - a normal enough step. But when prosecutors contacted Elissa Slotkin's attorney, famed former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, something went very wrong, very quickly. According to sources, Bharara asked what should be the most basic question in any criminal case: what law did my client allegedly break? Silence."
"So defense lawyers weren't shocked that Pirro couldn't secure an indictment.... they were shocked the DOJ tried to get one at all. Prosecutors couldn't point defense lawyers to a specific statute, yet they still marched into a grand jury room and asked citizens to indict members of Congress anyway. To date, it has still not been definitively confirmed what statute the government relied on in that failed effort."
The Trump-era Department of Justice sought to criminally pursue six Democratic lawmakers over a video advising military members not to follow illegal orders. A grand jury returned a no-bill for Jeanine Pirro with zero votes to indict. Prosecutors reportedly could not identify any specific statute the lawmakers allegedly violated and failed to articulate a theory of criminal liability when pressed by defense counsel. Defense lawyers were surprised that prosecutors sought an indictment without a clear legal basis. No definitive statute has been confirmed as the basis for the failed prosecution effort.
Read at Above the Law
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