Prosecutors informed a judge Thursday that they were withdrawing federal charges against a man they accused of threatening to kill President Donald Trump, marking another embarrassing setback for Trump ally and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro amid Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown.
The office of Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, had alleged that Eduardo Alexander Dana broke a light fixture outside a D.C. restaurant on Aug. 17 and, while in police custody, said he would kill the president. Dana was drunk and singing while in the police car, according to court files, and his attorney argued his remarks amounted to idle rambling and not “true threats.”
It was one of many cases brought during Trump’s federal takeover of D.C. law enforcement that defense attorneys have described as prosecutorial overreach unworthy of a federal court’s time.
A grand jury of D.C. residents apparently agreed Dana wasn’t serious about taking out Trump since it recently declined to indict him — even though it’s supposed to be easy for prosecutors to secure a grand jury indictment. That courtroom loss prompted Pirro’s office to drop their federal case and pursue misdemeanor charges against Dana in city court.
