Grand Jury Refuses to Indict an ICE Protester So Prosecutor Wants the Justice Manual Tossed

A grand jury refused to indict ICE protester accused of attacking law enforcement, and so Trump's top LA prosecutor wants the government's justice manual tossed.

The Daily needs your help. Please support us by becoming a subscriber.

A grand jury refused to indict ICE protester accused of attacking law enforcement, and so Trump's top LA prosecutor wants the government's justice manual tossed, the Los Angeles Times reported.

And actually, this isn’t a one-off. They’re struggling to get juries to indict ICE protesters. U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli’s office filed felony charges against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct during the ICE protests last month and or near immigration raids, according to court records analyzed by the Los Angeles Times.

But “only seven indictments, which usually need to be obtained no later than 21 days after the filing of a criminal complaint. Three other cases have been resolved via plea deal, records show.”

It’s an “exceedingly rare” outcome after the kind of hearing that typically leads to federal charges, according to the LA Times.

It’s reportedly leading the top prosecutor to call for just tossing out the government’s Justice Manual.

After the grand jury refused to indict someone accused of “attacking federal law enforcement officers during protests against the recent immigration raids throughout Southern California,” a prosecutor was on speakerphone with “the irate Trump administration official” and his “screaming was audible.”

Essayli was overheard telling a subordinate to “disregard the federal government’s ‘Justice Manual,’ which directs prosecutors to bring only cases they can win at trial. Essayli barked that prosecutors should press on and secure indictments as directed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, according to the three officials.”

The paper got into the specifics of the overarching challenges for the prosecution, noting that Essayli’s office declined to be interviewed for the article but accused them of “factual inaccuracies and anonymous gossip,” offering no specifics and not responding to follow up… Which I might point out is bad form for a prosecutor’s office that should at the very least have a good argument for what they’re doing.

The struggles to obtain indictments can be read as “a strong indication that the priorities of the prosecutor’s office are out of sync with the priorities of the general community,” Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in L.A., told The Times.

The low level of indictments should also raise questions, given this administration’s history of lying about a whole lot of people including sitting elected officials and people they’ve rounded up and sent to El Salvador, about the quality of evidence they are putting forth. Are any of these folks peaceful protesters who were swept up in this administration’s attacks on Los Angeles?

“I cannot overemphasize how rare it is for both a) a grand jury to return no true bill and b) a reporter to get around grand jury secrecy rules to confirm it,” Quinta Jurecic, who writes about law and democracy at The Atlantic, wrote over the LA Times story on BlueSky. Jurecic further shared the following from a 2019 piece:

Of course, it’s likely that most of those cases didn’t involve an administration infamous for wholesale making up accusations against anyone they don’t like, critics, opponents, rivals, and people with tattoos.

The real story here is that American citizens serving on LA juries are refusing to indict people when the evidence is lacking. And this is so upsetting to the Trump regime that their response is to toss the American justice system out of the window and just charge people anyway.

Essayli has won indictments against people who are accused of violence against law enforcement, though, “including two where defendants are accused of throwing or planning to throw Molotov cocktails at L.A. law enforcement officers, and a case where defendants allegedly fired a paintball gun at federal police.”

This, again, raises the question about what evidence they have against the people the jury refused to indict, whom they are painting as violent. The Trump regime calls everyone violent, and they do so without cause, evidence, or even in the face of video evidence proving the opposite.

In fact, Meghan Blanco, a defense attorney to one of the protesters facing charges, said a lot of times what the government is accusing the protesters of doing simply did not happen. She gave the example of Jose Mojica, who was accused of pushing a federal officer in Paramount.

Blanco found video on social media that completely destroyed the case against her client, and proved that the agent had lied on their affidavit.

“The agent lied and said he was in hot pursuit of a person who punched him,” Blanco told the Times. “The entirety of the affidavit is false.”

By the way, Essayli was appointed by A.G. Pam Bondi as an interim prosecutor. The “friend” of Bondi has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

What do you think about the ICE cases falling apart? Share your thoughts in the comments below.