Jury Acquittal Hands Jeanine Pirro A Big L

A lot has happened. Here are some things. This is TPM's morning note.

Three time loser

In a case under intense scrutiny, a federal jury acquitted woman Thursday on charges of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer during an ICE detainee transfer outside the D.C. jail over the summer.

Federal grand jury refused three times charge Sidney Reed with a felony for the incident. Instead of dismissing the case, DCUS Attorney Jeanine Pirro charged him with a misdemeanor and took him to trial. U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan said this may be the first time a criminal defendant has been charged federally in the District of Columbia with assaulting a federal officer, WUSA's Sophie Rosenthal. reports.

Although the case was widely viewed as an example of jury nullification, it is more accurately classified as a case of overcharging. The evidence against Reed was weak, but that didn't matter. Pirro had ordered her prosecutors will bring the toughest federal charges possible during Trump's retaliatory law enforcement push into the District of Columbia. Some federal judges have refused to hear some cases that end up in federal court that might normally be heard in the D.C. Superior Court – or not heard at all.

For prosecutors, requiring maximum charges has made winning cases more difficult. But in Reed's case, prosecutors did themselves no favors.

Prosecutors and two federal officers who were alleged victims in the case were late in releasing information. Some discoveries were not disclosed at all, leading to admonitions from Judge Sooknanan during his trial this week. “These are games” by Suknanan said prosecutor's office at one point.

Prosecutors' failure to disclose information ultimately forced Suknanan to give treatment instructions members of the jury:

Before the jury even got the case, Sooknanan acquitted Reed of wrongdoing against one of the federal officers due to insufficient evidence that she had assaulted him. The officer in question testified to the grand jury that Reed initiated the physical contact, but video of the incident showed that was not true, Sooknanan. said in court.

That allowed jurors to decide whether Reed assaulted another officer, the prosecution's only witness. This officer did not turn over some of his text messages regarding the case until the first day of trial, and even then one was missing. “The missing message was only discovered during cross-examination,” WUSA reported.

The prosecutor argued that the missing message was the result of an error made by the officer when taking screenshots of the messages. But Judge Suknanan ran out of patience. “This seems to be a common theme among all your witnesses. Were they lying or continually making mistakes?” Suknanan told the prosecutor about this.

Reed published statement after jury verdict:

To summarize, Pirro lost three times:

• three grand juries without bills;
• one acquittal by the judge;
• one acquittal to the petit jury.

The jury is doing its job, but it should never come to that.

Bolton's accusation is still untrue

As expected, the federal indictment against John Bolton in Maryland was more convincing, reasonable and believable than the bogus charges brought against Trump's other indicted enemies, James Comey and Letitia James. There is no evidence that career prosecutors rejected the charges, and the acting U.S. Attorney for Maryland is herself a career prosecutor.

Plus Bolton takes the field indictment as completely stupid, as well as careless and even reckless in the way he allegedly handled classified information, sharing more than 1,000 pages of “diary” entries with two family members while serving as Trump's national security adviser, WSJ reports this to be his wife and daughter. This supposed exchange is peak WTF:

But plausible criminal charges alone do not remove the stink that Trump has placed on this investigation. I'd go further than Joyce Vance, who writes that Trump has “undermined the integrity of the criminal justice system.” John Bolton would not have been indicted if not for his role as a critic of Trump. The investigation, which began under Trump I, was closed under the Biden administration but was reopened when Trump took office again. It is a travesty of justice that this case is being tried in this manner at this time.

WaPo offers a little tidbit in its story on charges:

John Eisenberg, head of the Justice Department's national security division, was at the White House on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. His unit was involved in the Bolton investigation, which is typical for cases involving classified documents.

In Trump I, Eisenberg served as deputy White House counsel and legal counsel to the National Security Council since Bolton's arrival, and was involved in some key first term moments. The WaPo story implies, but does not directly say, that Eisenberg briefed the White House about Bolton's indictment. But at this point, I'm not sure that fleeting reports of DOJ officials being seen at the White House carry the same weight as before. As Morning Memo has repeatedly noted, the Justice Department is being pushed out of the White House.

On the same day, Eisenberg visited the White House, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Cash Patel together. appeared in the Oval Office with President Trump, in which he publicly urged them to attack former special counsel Jack Smith, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman and former deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco.

Mass Deportation: Chicago Edition

The Trump administration's assault on Chicago, which in the Republican minds lives as a post-apocalyptic hellscape wracked by urban (read: black) violence and decay, is hitting hard with federal judges:

• Judge with three judges panel 7th Circuit Court of Appeals composed of Trump, Obama and Bush I appointees unanimously supported district court ruling prohibiting the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois.
• U.S. District Judge Sarah Ellis of Chicago said she would do so. order federal immigration officers to wear and use body cameras.
• U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis of Chicago ordered Prosecutors must send back from Maine on a flatbed trailer the vehicle of a Border Patrol agent involved in a hotly contested incident in which he shot and killed a woman after their vehicles collided earlier this month. Defense attorneys asked that it be returned to the Chicago area so they could study it.

Trump's Venezuelan adventure

In recent events:

• Adm. Alvin Halsey is stepping down as head of U.S. Southern Command after less than a year of his usual three-year term. Halsey oversaw the build-up in the Caribbean and illegal U.S. attacks on suspected drug ships. Halsey's impending departure comes after he “expressed concerns about the mission and attacks on suspected drug ships,” the newspaper reported. reports the New York Times.
• Only one of the 27 people killed in attacks on the US high seas on suspected drug boats was previously identified publicly. “[D]“Despite the rising death toll, no government authority has come forward publicly to release the names of the dead,” he said. reports the New York Times.
• WaPo Analysis show that an elite special operations aviation unit of the US military may have been operating in Caribbean waters off the coast of Venezuela in recent days.
• Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro do a show deployment of its forces to repel any US attack.

Topic of the week

The federal budget apparatus is extremely complex and intricate, but one reason for this is the constitutional structure designed to prevent financial power from becoming a tyrannical instrument. Now President Trump and his administration are tearing at the fabric of these constitutional restrictions in new and dramatic ways:

Trump's mechanism to pay soldiers during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budget action he has taken as president, potentially setting the stage for unraveling everything. This is not necessary because Congress could easily pass a GI bill if Johnson were willing to intervene.

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) 2025-10-15T18:59:02.314Z

Chief propagandist

The drumbeat of such things from the White House is constant and never-ending, polluting the political atmosphere with a constant stream of propaganda and disinformation:

Special offer for Morning Notes readers

Our big holiday 25th anniversary of TPM officially began with the publication of the first in a series of 25 essays by a group of leading authors on the history of digital media.

We're going to celebrate this milestone over the next three weeks, culminating with two-day extravaganza in New York on November 6-7. Tickets for both evenings are on sale now.

Morning Memo readers can receive 33% discount on tickets for the live show on Thursday, November 6th using the code “MorningMemo” at checkout. That evening I will join other TPM members, past and present, on stage to reminisce about our shared history and jokes.

Please join us for one or both nights. I look forward to meeting you in person, but I especially enjoy seeing you meet each other.

Do you like Morning Note? Let us know!