Pirro
(Photo
by
Win
McNamee/Getty
Images)
On
Thursday,
jurors
in
DC
threw
up
two
giant
middle
fingers
to
US
Attorney
Jeanine
Pirro.
Again.
In
fact,
it
was
the
fourth
time
the
residents
of
the
nation’s
capital
had
flipped
off
Pirro
in
the
same
case.
The
charges
involved
Sydney
Reid,
who
was
roughed
up
by
ICE
and
FBI
agents
on
July
22
while
filming
the
transfer
of
immigrants
from
DC’s
Metropolitan
Police
Department
to
federal
custody.
During
the
scuffle,
FBI
Agent
Eugenia
Bates
bruised
her
knuckles,
and
Pirro’s
office
charged
Reid
with
assaulting
an
officer
…
or
tried
to
anyway.
After
wasting
the
magistrate’s
time
with
a
criminal
complaint,
the
government
took
to
social
media
to
congratulate
themselves
for
being
so
big
and
tough.
“Assault
an
officer
or
agent
—
get
arrested.
It’s
not
rocket
science,”
ICE’s
official
account
tweeted.
But
grand
jurors
had
other
ideas,
with
three
separate
panels
returning
a
no
bill
on
the
alleged
assault.
On
August
25,
with
the
30
days
to
indict
expiring,
the
DOJ
was
forced
to
walk
of
shame
itself
back
into
court
and
admit
that
it
had
come
up
empty.
To
save
face,
Pirro’s
office
announced
that
it
was
charging
Reid
with
misdemeanor
assault,
which
doesn’t
require
a
grand
jury
to
sign
the
prosecution’s
permission
slip.
In
fact,
Pirro’s
office
has
gotten
no-billed
at
least
a
dozen
times
in
the
past
four
months
—
an
astonishing
record.
Pirro
raced
to
Fox
to
explain
that
this
is
because
jurors
in
DC
don’t
understand
the
lawless
hellhole
they
live
in.
“There
are
a
lot
of
people
who
sit
on
juries,
and
they
live
in
Georgetown
or
in
Northwest,
or
in
some
of
these
better
areas,
and
they
don’t
see
the
reality
of
crime
that
is
occurring,”
she
blathered.
“And
my
office
has
been
instructed
to
move
for
the
highest
crime
possible
consistent
with
the
law,
the
statute
and
the
evidence.”
Reid
was
assigned
two
highly
competent
federal
public
defenders,
Tezira
Abe
and
Eugene
Ohm,
who
informed
the
court
that
she
would
not
be
waiving
her
speedy
trial
rights,
thankyouverymuch.
She’d
like
to
go
to
trial
immediately,
while
the
memory
of
living
under
de
facto
military
obligation
was
fresh
in
her
fellow
citizens’
minds.
The
prosecution
was
an
epic
shitshow.
The
DOJ
filed
a
superseding
criminal
information
on
October
10,
claiming
that
Reid
assaulted
not
just
Bates,
but
also
ICE
Officer
Vincent
Laing
because,
while
being
manhandled,
Reid’s
knee
jerked
in
his
general
direction
leaving
him
in
fear
of
injury.
Judge
Sparkle
Sooknanan
eventually
threw
out
that
part
of
the
charge.
On
the
eve
of
trial,
the
prosecution
admitted
that
a
security
camera
which
they’d
claimed
was
inoperable
had
in
fact
captured
the
entire
event.
WUSA9,
the
local
CBS
affiliate,
reports
that
Judge
Sooknanan
struck
a
government
witness
as
sanction
for
the
screw
up:
“Either
your
agent
lied,
or
DOC
lied,
or
someone
was
sloppy,”
Sooknanan
said.Prosecutors
said
it
was
unclear
whether
the
video
was
ever
uploaded
to
a
server
by
the
DOC
and,
if
so,
if
it
was
ever
downloaded
by
the
U.S.
Attorney’s
Office.
Assistant
U.S.
Attorney
Travis
Wolfe
said
the
server
is
emptied
every
60
days
to
save
storage
space.“Your
honor,
I’m
as
frustrated
as
you
are,”
Wolfe
said.“Yeah,
but
you’re
prosecuting
a
defendant
in
a
criminal
case,
so
your
frustration
rings
a
little
hollow
compared
to
hers
or
mine,”
Sooknanan
said.
The
law
enforcement
agents
involved
also
sent
each
other
copious
text
messages
chortling
about
the
interaction
with
Reid
and
sharing
social
media
videos
of
the
scuffle.
Bates,
the
supposed
victim,
called
Reid
a
“libtard”
and
referred
to
the
scrapes
on
her
knuckles
as
“boo
boos.”
Per
WUSA9:
In
the
new
messages
turned
over
Wednesday
morning,
Bates
was
discussing
Reid’s
arrest
with
another
ICE
agent,
Dinko
Residovic.
She
compliments
him
for
jumping
into
action,
saying,
“Your
cop
side
was
showing.”
He
responds,
“It’s
too
calm
at
the
fed
level.”The
missing
message
was
her
response.
She
wrote,
“I
agree.
Everyone
is
scared
to
react.
So
much
respect!”Prosecutors
requested
the
messages
from
Bates
several
times
over
the
past
two
weeks,
but
it
wasn’t
until
Wednesday
morning
that
Bates
actually
turned
over
the
messages.
Wolfe
argued
that
she
may
have
made
a
mistake
while
screenshotting
the
messages,
instead
of
intentionally
leaving
it
out.“That
seems
to
be
a
common
theme
with
all
your
witnesses.
Did
they
lie,
or
did
they
continuously
make
mistakes?”
Sooknanan
told
Wolfe.
Judge
Sooknanan
issued
a
couple
of
key
rulings
in
the
defendant’s
favor,
including
with
respect
to
the
jury
instructions.
The
DOJ
was
forced
to
admit
that
there
was
no
template
for
an
instruction
charging
8
USC
§
111
as
a
misdemeanor,
since
no
prior
US
Attorney
would
have
bothered
to
go
to
trial
after
getting
no-billed
on
the
felony.
The
court
issued
an
instruction
requiring
the
jury
to
find
that
Reid
had
assaulted
Bates,
not
simply
obstructed
her
in
her
official
duties.
In
the
event,
it
took
the
jurors
less
than
two
hours
to
return
a
unanimous
verdict
of
not
guilty.
Pirro
did
at
least
manage
to
avoiding
insulting
the
citizens
of
the
District
this
time,
simply
releasing
a
statement
to
The
Independent
conceding
that
“the
jury
has
spoken
and
we
accept
their
decision.”
But
Reid’s
lawyers
issued
a
blistering
statement
rebuking
the
DOJ
for
bringing
“a
case
that
has
no
place
in
a
free
democracy.”
“The
Department
of
Justice
can
continue
to
take
these
cases
to
trial
to
suppress
dissent
and
to
try
and
intimidate
the
people,”
Abe
and
Ohm
told
the
Huffington
Post.
“But
in
the
end,
as
long
as
we
have
a
jury
system,
our
citizens
will
continue
to
rebuke
the
DOJ
through
speedy
acquittals.”
Reid
called
the
president
“a
crazy
person,”
but
also
expressed
optimism
at
the
verdict:
“Knowing
that
I
can
stand
in
front
of
12
of
my
fellow
citizens
and
be
found
not
guilty
for
standing
up
for
basic
human
rights
makes
me
feel
like,
despite
the
scary
times
we
live
in,
we
have
hope
for
the
future.”
In
the
immediate
future,
the
DOJ
will
try
to
convict
another
notorious
miscreant,
Sean
“Hoagie
Hero”
Dunn,
who
threw
a
sub
at
a
CBP
agent
on
August
10.
Dunn
quickly
became
a
folk
hero,
and
Pirro’s
team
got
no
billed
when
it
tried
to
indict
him
for
assault.
As
with
Reid,
they
refiled
the
case
as
a
misdemeanor,
and
Dunn’s
trial
begins
on
November
3.
Pirro’s
office
is
also
locked
in
a
battle
with
DC
Magistrate
Judge
Zia
Faruqui,
who
blocked
the
US
Attorney
from
going
to
a
grand
jury
in
DC
Superior
Court
after
the
federal
grand
jurors
no-billed
charges
against
a
guy
who
got
caught
with
an
illegal
gun
in
his
car.
On
the
plus
side,
courts
are
out
of
money
now,
so
perhaps
Pirro
will
get
a
brief
reprieve
from
getting
her
ass
kicked
on
the
daily.
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