These secretive decisions show a citizens' revolt against Trump is gathering serious pace

I wanted to highlight and give you context for some important news that broke on Wednesday.

The news is that Donald Trump’s federal prosecutors have failed to secure an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers — all veterans of the military or the intelligence community — who posted a video in November reminding active-duty members of the military and intelligence community that they were obligated to refuse illegal orders.

The video enraged Trump.

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” he wrote on his social media site.

He shared another post saying, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

Days later, the six lawmakers disclosed that the FBI had contacted the House and Senate, requesting interviews with them, indicating that a criminal investigation was under way.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. and a longtime Trump ally, promptly asked a grand jury to indict them.

But the grand jury refused.

I can’t emphasize enough how rare it is for a grand jury to refuse to issue an indictment that’s requested by a federal prosecutor, because prosecutors exert so much control over them.

Grand juries aren’t like juries in regular trials. They meet in secret — 16 to 23 citizens summoned from the community.

No judge is present. No lawyers who represent defendants are present. No witnesses appear. Prosecutors are in total command — presenting evidence of a crime and asking grand juries to indict.

And the evidentiary standard is not whether a crime occurred “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but merely whether there is “probable cause” of a federal crime.

It’s not surprising, then, that federal grand juries have issued indictments in more than 99 percent of cases prosecutors bring to them. (For example, in 2010, of 162,000 federal cases federal prosecutors presented to grand juries seeking an indictment, only 11 resulted in grand juries deciding not to indict.)

As Judge Sol Wachtler, the former New York jurist, famously said, prosecutors are in such complete control of grand juries that they could get them to indict a ham sandwich.

But in 2025, something odd began happening. Federal grand juries in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Virginia refused to indict. At least seven of these cases involved clashes between protesters and federal officers. A grand jury in Virginia twice refused to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Then came yesterday’s grand jury’s rejection of Trump’s demand that the six lawmakers he targeted be criminally prosecuted.

It’s an amazing spectacle. Ordinary people serving on grand juries are refusing to indict people who have become entangled in Trump’s viciousness. A citizen’s revolt.

Because of the secretive nature of grand juries, it’s impossible to know for sure why this has been happening. But the rejections suggest that grand jurors may have had enough of prosecutors seeking harsh charges in a highly politicized environment.

After the grand jury refused to indict him and five others, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) called out “an outrageous abuse of power by Donald Trump and his lackeys. Donald Trump wants every American to be too scared to speak out against him. The most patriotic thing any of us can do is not back down.”

He’s exactly right. The Justice Department and its federal prosecutors have abandoned any pretense at neutral justice. They’re now flagrant flaks for Trump.

On Wednesday, Republican senators weighed in against the regime.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) accused the regime of using “political lawfare” to try to lock up its perceived enemies: “Thankfully in this instance, a jury saw the attempted indictments for what they really were.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Judiciary Committee Chair, said: “I think our law enforcement people ought to be spending their time on making our community safe and going after real law breakers.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) offered: “That’s the judicial system at work.”

At Trump’s insistence, Pirro has opened a criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve. The DOJ is also pursuing a criminal investigations of Democratic officials in Minnesota who opposed Trump’s immigration crackdown. It arrested the journalist Don Lemon over his presence at a church protest in Minneapolis. Last week the FBI searched an elections office in the Atlanta area, based on debunked claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Not only are Senate Republicans rising up against this but so are ordinary Americans. They’re — we’re — saying no to Trump’s vicious prosecutions, and no to the federal prosecutors pursing them. We’re saying no to Republican candidates in special elections. We’re saying no to ICE and Border Patrol troops in our cities. We’re shouting “ICE OUT” and “F--- ICE” at sporting events. We’re saying no at marches and demonstrations.

A citizen’s revolt is occurring across America against the mad king, including places — such as grand juries — where revolts almost never occurred before.

Mark my words, friends: We will be stronger for having gone through this.

• Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org