No grand jurors found the Trump DOJ met low probable cause threshold in failed indictment of Democratic lawmakers

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-bondi-epstein-congress-netanyahu-iran-dhs-ice-poll-live-updates-rcna257992

None of the D.C. grand jurors who heard the Trump administration’s pitch on why they should indict Democratic lawmakers over a video urging members of the military and intelligence communities to uphold their oaths believed the Justice Department had met the low threshold of probable cause, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

It’s exceedingly rare for a federal grand jury to reject prosecutors’ attempts to secure an indictment, since the process is stacked in the government’s favor. Federal grand juries need a minimum of 16 members to have a quorum, and they max out at 23 members. Just 12 grand jurors need to agree that the government had probable cause to indict, a threshold much lower than the unanimous “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard that a petit jury needs to convict.

In 2016, the Justice Department investigated more than 151,000 suspects, but grand juries returned just six “no bills,” per DOJ statistics. The vast majority of assistant U.S. attorneys will go their entire careers without being rejected by a grand jury like this. As NBC News previously reported, the lawyers who attempted to bring the case are political appointees, not career prosecutors.

It’s unclear if the office of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro will push forward and try to indict the Democratic members again.

*the end*

[EdmondDantes_]

1. If only they were capable of feeling shame

That's really an embarrassing indictment of their case.

[SheltieLover]

2. I wish all judges could prevent them from pursuing more nonsense

Ridiculous!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Trump prosecutors were asked which law Democrats broke - and they couldn't name even one

Normally an indictment has to list the statutes on which the charges are based

President Donald Trump's alleged vengeance campaign against his political enemies has thus far flopped as his at times under-qualified loyalists fail to secure indictments, and new reports are emerging about the latest fiasco.

— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-02-18T20:01:18.853Z

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-prosecution-democratic-lawmakers

President Donald Trump's alleged vengeance campaign against his political enemies has thus far flopped as his at times under-qualified loyalists fail to secure indictments, and new reports are emerging about the latest fiasco.

Federal prosecutors failed to persuade a single grand jury member that there was probable cause to indict six Democratic lawmakers who produced a video reminding military service members they were duty-bound to disobey unlawful orders, and The New Republic's Greg Sargent reported that even prosecutors weren't sure what law they might have broken.

"Here’s what happened: After the FBI communicated with the Democratic lawmakers, prosecutors in Pirro’s office reached out to them to follow up," Sargent wrote. "Slotkin’s attorney, Preet Bharara, directly asked prosecutors what statute the Democrats had allegedly violated to prompt the criminal inquiry, according to sources familiar with these discussions. The prosecutors could not name any statute, the sources told me."

“'What is the theory of criminal liability?' is the question that was posed to the prosecutors, one source said, adding that 'no answer was forthcoming.'"

Prosecutors went forward in their attempt to indict the members of Congress without naming any violated statute, and Sargent said that it still hasn't been definitively confirmed what statue they used in their ultimately doomed grand jury hearing.

"The failure to name a relevant statute when directly asked to do so by the lawyers for the accused suggests prosecutors didn’t think a criminal prosecution was warranted or doubted there was probable cause to think the Democrats had committed a crime," Sargent wrote. "In fact, one source familiar with these discussions tells me the prosecutors’ general tone in them suggested they were making the sort of inquiry that normally comes at the very outset of the investigative process."

One of the sources said that prosecutors – neither of whom had much prior experience – seemed to be at the "very preliminary" stage in their investigation when they presented their evidence to a grand jury, and Sargent said that's a worrisome sign.

"For the DOJ to seek an indictment so soon after conversations like those suggests something or other prompted the rush to indict, perhaps a word from on high that — let’s go way out on a limb here — had little to do with facts and law," he wrote. "Legal experts tell me it’s odd for prosecutors to fail to state any theory of criminal liability and then attempt an indictment anyway so quickly."