Jeanine Pirro just spent a terrible week in court

Prosecutors are dismissing another case in which they claimed a Washington, D.C., resident had assaulted a federal agent during President Donald Trump’s criminal crackdown, the latest in a series of embarrassing reversals by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C.

Mark Bigelow was arrested in August for allegedly having an open container of alcohol in the back of a pickup truck. Police claimed he resisted arrest and punched a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent while in custody.

With Pirro’s office eager to tout Trump’s federal takeover of police in the city, prosecutors initially charged Bigelow with felony assault on a federal officer, which can carry a prison sentence of up to eight years. It was one of many cases in which prosecutors appeared to be overcharging D.C. residents with serious crimes just to send a message about Trump’s takeover.

Pirro’s office later reduced the charge to a misdemeanor, likely after it became clear that prosecutors would not prevail in a felony case. But now prosecutors are also looking to drop the misdemeanor charge.

In a filing Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Seidel asked the judge to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” meaning the case would be dismissed and no new charges would be filed against Bigelow. Dismissal, Seidel wrote, “would serve the interests of justice.”

Elizabeth Mullin, Bigelow’s attorney, told News themezone in an email that her client was satisfied with the outcome.

“This was the only fair outcome in this case and we are pleased that the U.S. Attorney’s Office reached the same conclusion,” Mullin said.

via News

Pirro’s office has earned rebukes from federal court judges in D.C. for pursuing felony cases that went nowhere, then changing the subject and filing misdemeanor charges. In several cases, grand juries have declined to return indictments, an uncomfortable defeat for prosecutors since they largely control the grand jury process.

Defense attorneys have criticized several cases as a colossal waste of judicial time and resources, as well as a grave injustice: Many defendants ended up spending days in the city jail only to have their cases dismissed.

Pirro, in turn, has attacked a DC judge and even the jurors themselves.

The decision to drop the Bigelow case comes after Pirro’s office suffered an embarrassing loss in a similar case that went to a jury trial.

Prosecutors had accused D.C. resident Sidney Reid of punching an FBI agent during an altercation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Reid, like many locals who oppose Trump’s deportation campaign, had been filming officers as they detained a man who had just been released from the D.C. jail.

Pirro’s office tried unsuccessfully three times to get a D.C. grand jury to return a felony indictment against Reid for assaulting a federal agent. They ended up bringing a misdemeanor case against her, but they couldn’t even win on the lesser charge.

Reid was acquitted Thursday after a three-day jury trial. He said in a statement through his lawyers that his case showed that “this administration and its pawns are not capable of invoking fear in all citizens.”

“I truly feel sorry for the prosecutors, who must be burdened by Trump’s irrational and baseless hatred of his fellow man,” Reid continued. “Knowing that I can stand in front of 12 of my fellow citizens and be found innocent for standing up for basic human rights makes me feel that, despite the terrifying times we live in, we have hope for the future.”