The rejection of the Trump administration’s questionable prosecutions marks a notable departure from the long-standing pattern of deference toward federal prosecutors.
Senator Bill Cassidy (R–La.) voiced his concern about what he called the weaponization of the Justice Department, speaking to reporters in August as he explained his hesitation to back Todd Blanche for attorney general. He specifically pointed to the bid to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as a White House aide in Trump’s first term, on the basis of her 2022 testimony to the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot of 2021. “I hear there is a grand jury being convened to examine her,” Cassidy remarked. “Why is that? Shouldn’t all Americans fear the weaponization of the DOJ?”
The DC grand jurors who on Tuesday declined to indict Hutchinson seemed to share the senator’s concerns about the case. This setback fits a broader pattern: over the past two years, grand juries have repeatedly refused to sign off on charges brought by federal prosecutors, signaling the Trump administration’s tendency to pursue politically charged cases on tenuous evidence.
A grand jury hears only the government’s side of a case, and the probable-cause standard for approving an indictment—reasonable grounds to believe a crime occurred and that the identified individual committed it—is far less stringent than the proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a conviction. Yet the Justice Department’s prosecutorial manual directs that charges should be pursued only when “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient” to meet that higher standard. The fact that a grand jury determined the government had not met the minimal burden of establishing probable cause represents a striking deviation from that instruction.
Hutchinson, who at the time of the Capitol riot was the principal assistant to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, provided the testimony at the center of the failed indictment on June 28, 2022. She described Trump as seemingly unconcerned about weapons carried by some rally attendees, at a speech he gave on the day of the riot, during which he repeated his false claim that Joe Biden had stolen the 2020 election and urged supporters to “fight like hell” against Congress’s ratification of his victory.
Hutchinson said Trump wanted the Secret Service to stop screening rally participants with magnetometers because he worried it would shrink the crowd. “I don’t effing care that they have weapons,” Trump allegedly told Hutchinson. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take [the] effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in.”
Hutchinson also testified that Trump was furious when the Secret Service told him he could not join the protesters at the Capitol. That portion aligned with the testimony of other witnesses. But Hutchinson added disputed details, stating Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato had told her Trump was so angry that he “lunged toward Bobby Engel,” the head of his protective detail, and “reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel.” The Secret Service agent who served as Trump’s driver that day contradicted Hutchinson’s account, and Ornato said he had no recollection of any such incident.
Last March, Representatives Barry Loudermilk (R–Ga.) and Jim Jordan (R–Ohio) urged the Justice Department to prosecute Hutchinson for lying to Congress. “Hutchinson’s potential prosecution became a point of controversy between lawmakers and DOJ officials,” CNN reported. “Some within the department believed there was not enough evidence to bring a viable criminal case.”
You might have expected such a case to be handled by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Instead, the Hutchinson investigation was conducted by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, headed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, a steadfast Trump loyalist.
You may wonder what examining Hutchinson’s testimony has to do with the division’s stated aim of “protecting the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans.” Dhillon’s involvement is even more perplexing given that Pirro previously did not hesitate to pursue questionable charges against the president’s enemies.
Last February, Pirro sought to indict six Democratic members of Congress who appeared in a November 2025 video reminding U.S. military personnel of their duty to “refuse illegal orders.” Trump condemned the message as “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” insisting the lawmakers “should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.” But, as a federal judge later noted, the video in question was “unquestionably protected” by the First Amendment.
That did not deter Pirro from attempting to carry out her boss’s directive. Yet, as with Hutchinson’s case, the grand jury seemingly did not want to participate in Trump’s vendetta. After it unanimously refused to sign off on the indictment, Pirro ceased pursuing the matter.
That awkward episode may have discouraged Pirro from engaging in Hutchinson’s case, particularly if she believed the evidence would not yield a conviction. She would have had reasonable grounds for reaching that conclusion.
It remains unclear precisely which charges the grand jury rejected this week. However, the most relevant statutes would have been 18 U.S.C. 1001—covering false statements made in any matter within the executive, legislative, or judicial branches—and 18 U.S.C. 1621, which criminalizes perjury. Both offenses carry up to five years in prison. But convicting under Section 1001 requires proving that the defendant “knowingly and willfully” made a “materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement,” while perjury applies only when a sworn witness “willfully and contrary to the oath” makes a “material” statement they do not believe to be true.
Those elements would have been difficult to prove in Hutchinson’s case. Her account of Trump’s nonchalant attitude toward weapons among his supporters rested on what she said she heard him say, a version that pits her testimony against that of a politician with a long history of falsehoods on the same day. And even if her recollection of Trump’s remarks was imperfect, that does not automatically mean she intentionally lied. The same applies to the alleged lunging-and-grabbing incident, an account Hutchinson attributed to a conversation with Ornato that he denies remembering.
Perhaps Hutchinson, who had legal counsel and was surely aware of the penalties for lying to Congress, nonetheless fabricated both claims. But it seems more plausible that she either misremembered or misinterpreted what Trump and Ornato said. Either way, meeting the first element beyond a reasonable doubt would have given any prudent prosecutor pause. And the grand jurors, even without hearing a government rebuttal, concluded that the evidence of deliberate deception was too weak to establish probable cause.
That decision stands as the latest in a string of similar rebukes. In addition to Pirro’s rejection of charges against the “Seditious Six,” the record includes attempts to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud, blocked by two separate grand juries in Virginia cities last December.
Grand juries in Washington, D.C., have also balked at pursuing felony charges against protesters, including Sean Dunn, who tossed a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer, and Sydney Reid, who allegedly interfered with immigration arrests while filming the episode on her phone. In Reid’s case, Reason‘s Joe Lancaster noted that prosecutors pursued a felony assault indictment not once, not twice, but three times unsuccessfully. Reid ultimately was acquitted on the misdemeanor count.
In the summer of 2025, federal grand juries approved only seven of 38 proposed felony indictments against protesters in Los Angeles, a strikingly low success rate. A few months later, prosecutors dropped assault charges against two Chicago protesters after a grand jury declined to indict them.
“For decades, federal grand juries have almost never said no,” Ballard Spahr attorneys Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. and Brad Gershel observed last year. They noted that in 2016 grand juries declined to approve federal indictments in just 0.004 percent of cases. “That dynamic is now being tested,” they added. “As the DOJ has adopted a more aggressive charging posture in politically sensitive cases, grand juries appear to be reasserting their independence.”
