A Washington, D.C., grand jury disproved the legal mantra “you can indict a ham sandwich,” rejecting the Justice Department’s attempt to prosecute a Subway sandwich assault on a federal immigration officer.
But Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, rebuked the rejection of the felony charge as a partisan decision fed by a biased jury’s lack of “reality” and acceptance of “normalized” crime in the Democrat-run city.
“There’s not a lot I can talk about in terms of grand juries, but what I can tell you is this: There are a lot of people that sit on juries and they live in Georgetown, or Northwest, or some of these in better areas and they do not see the reality of crime that is occurring,” Pirro told “Fox News Sunday.”
Sean Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal, was charged this month with hurling a submarine sandwich at an agent patrolling near 14th and U Streets. Prosecutors claimed Dunn shouted “I don’t want you in my city!” and called the targeted officer and other agents “fascists” before the incident.
Instead of getting the grand jury to pursue felony assault, Pirro’s office will now prosecute a misdemeanor, which doesn’t have quite the same chilling effect on criminals in deep-blue Washington.
“My office have been instructed to move for the highest crime possible consistent with the law, the statute, and the evidence,” Pirro said.
“In that one case,” she added, “we were on point. But the grand jurors don’t take it so seriously. They are like, ‘Ah, you know, whatever.’
“My job is to try to turn that around and to continue to give the support that my prosecutors need.”
Pirro is going to “go forward” with a misdemeanor charge, but she acknowledged there is a normalization of crime in D.C. that should not be accepted in America.
“The fact that they’re so used to crime, that crime is so normalized in D.C. — they don’t even care about whether or not the law is violated — is the very essence of what my problem is in D.C.,” Pirro said.
“And that is to turn the ship around as President Trump has directed.”
Minorities in D.C. are “hurt the worst about crime” and are “crying for help,” and they need to “finally” be heard, Pirro continued.
“That is what I am there to do and that is what my job is,” she said. “And I don’t really care about these people who say, ‘We don’t need you’ or ‘you are going too hard.’
“My job is to protect the victim and that is what we are going to do. We’re going to make the criminal accountable.”
Changing the soft-on-crime politics of the D.C. Council is another priority, according to Pirro.
“These statures are calling for a ceiling of convictions of within five years. That means if you hire someone, you are not going to find out whether or not they have been convicted of petty larceny or theft — or if you have a dance class you can’t find out the person applying is a pedophile. All of this is lunacy,” Pirro concluded.
“We are changing it and it’s not easy.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
