Grand Juries in the Capital Are Saying No to Trump's Justice Department, and More Often

For generations, lawyers have repeated a line about grand juries: a competent prosecutor could get one to indict a ham sandwich. In Donald Trump's Washington, that old joke has turned against the people who used to tell it.

In the past two weeks, federal prosecutors in the nation's capital have failed to secure indictments in at least three cases, The New York Times reported. The Times described the run of rejections as an acceleration of the trouble the Justice Department has had with grand juries. Taken one at a time, each refusal might be a footnote. Together they look like a pattern, and a meaningful one.

A Rare Rebuke Becomes Routine

Grand juries almost never decline to indict. These panels of ordinary citizens hear only the prosecution's side, without a defense lawyer or a judge running the room, and the legal bar is only probable cause. A 'no true bill' has historically been about as rare as snow in July. That several have now come in quick succession in one jurisdiction says a lot about how some Washington residents view the cases being brought to them.

The friction is not new. In 2025, during the administration's surge of federal law enforcement into the District, grand juries repeatedly refused to return felony charges sought by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, then led by Jeanine Pirro. In several cases prosecutors had to fall back on lesser misdemeanor counts. Critics said the office was overcharging in politically charged cases. Its defenders said the jury pool in a deeply Democratic city was hostile to the administration.

Why It Matters

For the Justice Department, the practical costs are real. Every rejected indictment uses up prosecutors' time, can hurt the credibility of the agents behind a case, and gives defense lawyers an argument when prosecutors try to go back to a new panel. The symbolic cost may be larger. The grand jury was designed as a buffer between the government's power to accuse and the citizen being accused. When that buffer starts to push back, it suggests the department's presumption of good faith, which it once took for granted, can no longer be assumed in its own backyard.

The timing adds to the pressure. The rejections come just after a midterm election that weakened the president's party, as Democrats prepare to use their new oversight power to examine how the department has wielded its authority. A run of failed indictments gives investigators on Capitol Hill a ready storyline.

What comes next is uncertain. Prosecutors could choose cases more carefully, re-present some of them, or look for venues outside the District. Administration allies may keep blaming Washington's jury pool rather than the strength of the evidence. Either way, the department is learning a lesson that defense lawyers have long understood: the people in the jury box are not just an audience, and they can stop playing along.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia did not immediately offer a public explanation for the recent string of declined indictments.