August 28, 2025 • 11 mins
Federal prosecutors were unable to secure a felony indictment against Sean C. Dunn, a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent in Washington, D.C.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good News for Lefties and America. Hello, and welcome to
a special edition of Good News for Lefties. I'm Beowulf Rockland,
your host, and I feel like there's always a chance
that when I read a news story for you, you
may have already heard it, and that's all right, that's okay.
(00:30):
The one that I'm about to bring to you has
been in the news cycle as of the time that
I'm recording it for about twenty four hours or so.
But I feel that it deserves a special level of
attention because it involves an act of resistance that I
(01:05):
think went above and beyond the call of duty. Federal
prosecutors were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve
a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich
(01:29):
at a federal agent on the streets of Washington, d C.
This month. Yes, it has been officially acknowledged by courts
in the United States that throwing a sandwich at a
law enforcement officer should not be a felony offense, which,
(01:52):
of course it should not be. Should you throw a
sandwich at a cop? No, Should you get charged for it?
Probably not at all. Could it be a misdemeanor. Maybe,
should it be a felony in the midst of a
(02:13):
surge of military troops into the capital city of the
United States. Absolutely not. But this is why we have
a jury system. This is why we have people, citizens,
peers that have to give approval before you can move
(02:37):
forward with something of this nature. That's democracy. Jury trials
are a huge part of democracy. And the guy who
threw a sandwich at a cop, and you've probably seen
the video of him shouting at the cop when they
first brought all these troops to Washington, d c. And
(03:02):
then throwing a subway sandwich at him and then running away,
it was just an awesome thing to see. And it
was a truly awesome thing to see the judicial system
and the people react like this. The grand jury's rejection
(03:23):
of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the
US Attorney's Office in Washington, and the second time in
recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to
vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on
a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke
(03:48):
by a panel of ordinary citizens, and that is the key.
These are regular, everyday people like you and me, who
get the opportunity to see evidence and say, is this
something worth pursuing or is this just completely ridiculous. Is
(04:08):
this something that someone should be seriously punished for. Of
course it's not. Of course it's not, and that's why
these people reacted this way. It amounted to a sharp
rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors
assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump's
(04:32):
deployment of the National Guard, national Guard troops and federal
agents to fight crime and patrol the city streets. Of course,
that's not what they're there for. And we know that
they're not there to fight crime. They're there to fight democracy.
They have been sent there by Donald Trump to scare people,
(04:58):
to scare them away from the pole, to scare them
away from activism. But the guy who threw this sandwich
wasn't scared, and he made a statement, a powerful statement
that went viral, and you know, maybe it was a
little puerile, but you know, sometimes it happens that way.
(05:23):
It wasn't harmful, it was disrespectful, and who knows, maybe
these times call for a little disrespect. You think the
rejection by the Grand jurors. Was particularly noteworthy given the
attention paid to the case of the man who threw
the sandwich Sean ced Doune. Video of the episode went
(05:44):
viral on social media. Senior officials talked about the case,
and the administration posted footage of a large group of
heavily armed law enforcement officers going to mister Dunn's apartment.
They went to his apartment to track him down because
he threw a sandwich. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. This is
(06:08):
what we would envision the Gestapo doing. It remained unclear
if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain they might
try again to throw this guy behind bars, whether they
plan to try again to obtain an indictment against mister Dunn,
thirty seven, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also
(06:32):
forego seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor,
which does not require an indictment to move forward. I
don't like that. I don't think he should be charged
with anything, but at least that would be halfway reasonable.
Mister Dunn was initially charged on August thirteenth in a
criminal complaint accusing him of throwing a submarine sandwich at
(06:53):
a Customs and Border Protection officer? What is the Customs
and Border Protection officer doing in Washington, d C? Patrolling
on duty? The Customs and Border Protection officer was on
patrol with other federal agents near the corner of Fourteenth
and U Streets in northwest Washington, d C. A popular
(07:14):
part of the city filled with bars and restaurants. Before
he threw the sandwich, the complaint asserts, mister Dunn stood
within inches of the officer, calling him and his colleagues
fascists and shouting, I don't want you in my city.
Good for you, Good for you, Sean Sea done. Now.
(07:37):
The legal part of this, I think is fascinating because
there is a very unusual thing happening here. This doesn't
usually happen on the Legally, it is extremely unusual for
prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining
an indictment, because they are in control of the information
(07:59):
that grand jurys hear about a case, and defendants are
not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as
evidence is presented, so they had control over everything. The
federal prosecutors that put this forward, they decided exactly what
the jurors saw, and it was still laughable. It was
(08:20):
rejected out of hand. Mister Trump's decision to flood the
streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who
are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has
resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal
crimes that would typically be handled at the local court
level if they were filed at all. So all Trump's
(08:44):
doing here is causing a bunch of problems. This has
also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors,
who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce charges
that defendants were facing in recent days. On Monday, for instance,
prosecutors filed a felony assault charge as a misdemeanor in
(09:07):
the case of a woman who was accused of injuring
an FBI agent during a protest last month against immigration
officials at the local jail in Washington. The charges were
reduced against the woman, Sidney Lorie Reid, after prosecutors failed
not just once, but three times to obtain an indictment
(09:28):
in the case. One, two, three strikes. You're out, Donald Trump.
How is it that they can try three times? To
get at an indictment and then just go somewhere else
and try to get another one. That doesn't seem like
that's the sort of thing that you'd be able to happen.
(09:50):
Mister Dunn's scheduled to appear next week in Federal District
Court in Washington for a preliminary hearing where another magistrate,
Judge G. Michael Harvey, will determine if there is probable
cause that a crime was committed during the sandwich throwing incident.
Judge Harvey, I can save you the time. It wasn't.
(10:10):
This is an act of resistance, and we here at
Good News for Lefties. Hail Shaun C. Dunn. Good on you, sir.
Let the sandwiches fly. Thank you so much for listening
(10:38):
to this special edition of Good News for Lefties. I'm
your host, Beawolf Rocklin. If you can. If you want
to spread the good news, I urge you to rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast
(10:58):
platform of your choice. It helps spread the good news,
it helps other lefties like you hear good stories like this.
We'll bring you more and be back to regularly scheduled
programming tomorrow
Good News for Lefties and America. Hello, and welcome to
a special edition of Good News for Lefties. I'm Beowulf Rockland,
your host, and I feel like there's always a chance
that when I read a news story for you, you
may have already heard it, and that's all right, that's okay.
(00:30):
The one that I'm about to bring to you has
been in the news cycle as of the time that
I'm recording it for about twenty four hours or so.
But I feel that it deserves a special level of
attention because it involves an act of resistance that I
(01:05):
think went above and beyond the call of duty. Federal
prosecutors were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve
a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich
(01:29):
at a federal agent on the streets of Washington, d C.
This month. Yes, it has been officially acknowledged by courts
in the United States that throwing a sandwich at a
law enforcement officer should not be a felony offense, which,
(01:52):
of course it should not be. Should you throw a
sandwich at a cop? No, Should you get charged for it?
Probably not at all. Could it be a misdemeanor. Maybe,
should it be a felony in the midst of a
(02:13):
surge of military troops into the capital city of the
United States. Absolutely not. But this is why we have
a jury system. This is why we have people, citizens,
peers that have to give approval before you can move
(02:37):
forward with something of this nature. That's democracy. Jury trials
are a huge part of democracy. And the guy who
threw a sandwich at a cop, and you've probably seen
the video of him shouting at the cop when they
first brought all these troops to Washington, d c. And
(03:02):
then throwing a subway sandwich at him and then running away,
it was just an awesome thing to see. And it
was a truly awesome thing to see the judicial system
and the people react like this. The grand jury's rejection
(03:23):
of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the
US Attorney's Office in Washington, and the second time in
recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to
vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on
a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke
(03:48):
by a panel of ordinary citizens, and that is the key.
These are regular, everyday people like you and me, who
get the opportunity to see evidence and say, is this
something worth pursuing or is this just completely ridiculous. Is
(04:08):
this something that someone should be seriously punished for. Of
course it's not. Of course it's not, and that's why
these people reacted this way. It amounted to a sharp
rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors
assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump's
(04:32):
deployment of the National Guard, national Guard troops and federal
agents to fight crime and patrol the city streets. Of course,
that's not what they're there for. And we know that
they're not there to fight crime. They're there to fight democracy.
They have been sent there by Donald Trump to scare people,
(04:58):
to scare them away from the pole, to scare them
away from activism. But the guy who threw this sandwich
wasn't scared, and he made a statement, a powerful statement
that went viral, and you know, maybe it was a
little puerile, but you know, sometimes it happens that way.
(05:23):
It wasn't harmful, it was disrespectful, and who knows, maybe
these times call for a little disrespect. You think the
rejection by the Grand jurors. Was particularly noteworthy given the
attention paid to the case of the man who threw
the sandwich Sean ced Doune. Video of the episode went
(05:44):
viral on social media. Senior officials talked about the case,
and the administration posted footage of a large group of
heavily armed law enforcement officers going to mister Dunn's apartment.
They went to his apartment to track him down because
he threw a sandwich. That's disgusting. That's disgusting. This is
(06:08):
what we would envision the Gestapo doing. It remained unclear
if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain they might
try again to throw this guy behind bars, whether they
plan to try again to obtain an indictment against mister Dunn,
thirty seven, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also
(06:32):
forego seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor,
which does not require an indictment to move forward. I
don't like that. I don't think he should be charged
with anything, but at least that would be halfway reasonable.
Mister Dunn was initially charged on August thirteenth in a
criminal complaint accusing him of throwing a submarine sandwich at
(06:53):
a Customs and Border Protection officer? What is the Customs
and Border Protection officer doing in Washington, d C? Patrolling
on duty? The Customs and Border Protection officer was on
patrol with other federal agents near the corner of Fourteenth
and U Streets in northwest Washington, d C. A popular
(07:14):
part of the city filled with bars and restaurants. Before
he threw the sandwich, the complaint asserts, mister Dunn stood
within inches of the officer, calling him and his colleagues
fascists and shouting, I don't want you in my city.
Good for you, Good for you, Sean Sea done. Now.
(07:37):
The legal part of this, I think is fascinating because
there is a very unusual thing happening here. This doesn't
usually happen on the Legally, it is extremely unusual for
prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining
an indictment, because they are in control of the information
(07:59):
that grand jurys hear about a case, and defendants are
not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as
evidence is presented, so they had control over everything. The
federal prosecutors that put this forward, they decided exactly what
the jurors saw, and it was still laughable. It was
(08:20):
rejected out of hand. Mister Trump's decision to flood the
streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who
are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has
resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal
crimes that would typically be handled at the local court
level if they were filed at all. So all Trump's
(08:44):
doing here is causing a bunch of problems. This has
also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors,
who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce charges
that defendants were facing in recent days. On Monday, for instance,
prosecutors filed a felony assault charge as a misdemeanor in
(09:07):
the case of a woman who was accused of injuring
an FBI agent during a protest last month against immigration
officials at the local jail in Washington. The charges were
reduced against the woman, Sidney Lorie Reid, after prosecutors failed
not just once, but three times to obtain an indictment
(09:28):
in the case. One, two, three strikes. You're out, Donald Trump.
How is it that they can try three times? To
get at an indictment and then just go somewhere else
and try to get another one. That doesn't seem like
that's the sort of thing that you'd be able to happen.
(09:50):
Mister Dunn's scheduled to appear next week in Federal District
Court in Washington for a preliminary hearing where another magistrate,
Judge G. Michael Harvey, will determine if there is probable
cause that a crime was committed during the sandwich throwing incident.
Judge Harvey, I can save you the time. It wasn't.
(10:10):
This is an act of resistance, and we here at
Good News for Lefties. Hail Shaun C. Dunn. Good on you, sir.
Let the sandwiches fly. Thank you so much for listening
(10:38):
to this special edition of Good News for Lefties. I'm
your host, Beawolf Rocklin. If you can. If you want
to spread the good news, I urge you to rate
and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcast
(10:58):
platform of your choice. It helps spread the good news,
it helps other lefties like you hear good stories like this.
We'll bring you more and be back to regularly scheduled
programming tomorrow
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