The Trump DOJ has undergone quite the makeover in his second term. He’s turned it into his personal law firm, one to both defend him and sue/prosecute those who he’s ticked off at. An awful lot of legal talent, career prosecutors have either been fired or left before actually getting fired. That has meant former AG Bondi and potential AG Blanche have had to hire new people. They have of course but loyalty to Trump, a willingness to do whatever he wants doesn’t count for jack in front of an increasing number of federal judges. One in Chicago is nailing yet another Trump legal hack to the wall.
At issue is the attempted prosecution of protesters at an ICE facility in Chicago. To say the prosecutor engaged in misconduct with the grand jury doesn’t adequately explain just how egregious it was, or the amount of trouble SHE is in. Like I said, more and more judges are getting fed up with team Trump and initiating reviews that could cost Trump DOJ lawyers their licenses. In this case the judge made a point of getting the state Bar’s attention by taking the extraordinary step of releasing some transcripts of important moments with the grand juries prosecutor Sheri Mecklenberg engaged in trying to manipulate the process.
As this article from Raw Story tells us she’s since been fired, but what the judge has done shows her troubles are far from over. This all started with a prosecutor choosing to follow not their official oath of office but instead an oath of loyalty to Trump. (I wonder if there’s an official handshake too?) Team Trump wanted to make an example out of six protesters at an ICE facility in Chicago by prosecuting them. However a grand jury said NO. Okay, we’ve been seeing that with the Trump DOJ the old saying about a prosecutor being able to indict a ham sandwich doesn’t hold true. Rather than let the whole thing go the prosecutor tried again a week later and will I predict wind up wishing she’d submitted a ‘mea cupla for failing’ resignation letter.
Instead, so in thrall was she to Trumpism that she tried to manipulate, bully and outright stack a second grand jury. The whole thing stunk enough that the judge decided to do what’s almost never done – release portions of grand jury proceedings. A quite public legal flogging that might as well have been phrased to the state Bar as “This lawyer should be disbarred. Do I REALLY have to waste time drafting a referral to you?” So what happened with the grand jury? The prosecutor got peppered with questions in Round 1 and they refused to indict:
On Oct. 9, Mecklenburg told the first grand jury she had hand-picked them. “I know you, and I trust you, and you know me, and you trust me, and I would never ask you to charge somebody if I didn’t think there was probable cause,” she said, according to the transcript. She added: “I don’t charge people unless I’m absolutely sure.”
The panel wasn’t sold. Jurors grilled her on whether the agent could have simply stopped his car, whether the damage predated the protest, and whether the protesters were merely bracing against a moving vehicle. They declined to indict.
Hand picked? That’s not how the system works. Prosecutors don’t have any say in it. When a grand jury is convened the judge assigns members from a pool of potential jurors. If the prosecutor somehow had a word with the clerk to get certain people to be at the top of the list that’s serious misconduct right there. Even if she had nothing to do with picking the panel telling them they’d been handpicked by her is at best a form of coercion. At worst it’s downright intimidation. It carries an implication the prosecutor has taken a particular interest in the members and failure to ‘go along’ can carry consequences. Still, at PZ’s Murfster used to explain (from personal experience) jurors (whether grand jury or Petit/trial) usually take their civic duty seriously. The first grand jury clearly said NO.
However this is the Trump DOJ and they take their cues from the Orange Asshat so she tried again a week later and boy did she screw herself:
A week later, on Oct. 16, Mecklenburg returned to a different panel and opened with a confession of failure. “Between the questions and not getting an indictment, I did not do my job,” she said. “I did not explain it to you well enough.”
Then came the moment that is now drawing the most scrutiny. When a juror asked whether she was “actually presenting any new actual facts or just a different viewpoint,” Mecklenburg asked if he could keep an open mind.
“I — no,” he said.
“Okay. Then you have to go,” she replied.
The juror didn’t go quietly. “I heard this case like last week, and I thought it was a crock of s— then and I still think it is.”
“Have a good evening,” Mecklenburg said.
It’s an indicator of her incompetence that she suddenly realized she might no longer have the minimum required number of grand jurors! The foreman helped out and yes, they still had enough people. This time she got her indictment but the transcript would turn out to be damning. There was a third session on Oct. 23 where she confessed to having conversations with two grand jurors outside the room. Yikes. The details on how/why the judge took a deep dive into the matter aren’t spoken to in the linked article. But Mecklenburg triple flushed her career down Trump’s fake gold toilet.
It was all so bad the DOJ wanted the whole thing OVER. It was clearly a huge liability the DOJ wanted buried and forgotten:
The case collapsed on May 21, when U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros took the rare step of appearing in court to drop every charge, conceding the grand jury process had been badly mishandled. Lead prosecutor Sheri Mecklenburg was later fired from a new Justice Department post. Until Tuesday, exactly what went wrong was hidden behind redactions. Now the prosecutor’s own words are on the record.
There’s more:
Boutros, listed as present at the Oct. 16 session, has said he didn’t learn of the vouching and juror contacts until late April. His junior co-counsel, Matthew Skiba, told the court the behavior was “at a minimum, arguably misconduct.”
So Boutros knew about all this since last October and only recently spoke up? All this time the defendants have had this matter hanging over their heads. He should have done what he did, or had Skiba dismiss the charges long ago. I wonder if Boutros might himself have some explaining to do with the state bar. In any case the DOJ wanted this matter closed and forgotten. By doing what’s almost never done, publishing part of the grand jury proceedings the judge has told the DOJ ‘No, you DON’T get to sweep this under the rug.
It’s an ugly mess with only one bright spot. The charges were dismissed with prejudice so they can never be brought again. Miller and Trump can suck it!
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