Thread by @julie_kelly2

It's hard to know where to start--or end-- in covering the batsh*t meltdown last week by DC Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui. (I made the full transcript available to my paid subscribers on Substack)

Faruqui was presiding over a hearing in the case of Edward Dana, a career criminal with 9 prior convictions and 23 arrests who was on probation and arrested by DC police for vandalizing property in a drunken rage on August 17.

During his arrest, Dana said he wanted to kill the president (among other crazy statements.) DC US attorney Jeanine Pirro sought to indict Dana on a federal felony of making threats to the president.

But once again--in a rarity now commonplace in DC--a grand jury made up of DC voters (93% for Kamala in 2024) refused to indict him. So prosecutors had to drop the charge.

This enraged Faruqui, who not only misrepresented Dana's case (making him a victim rather than the longtime perp he is) and he berated the prosecutor for about 20 minutes or so.

But Faruqui's tirade had less to do with Dana and more to do with President Trump. Time and again, Faruqui--who was appointed in 2020 but not confirmed by the Senate--blasted the president's policies related to using federal law enforcement agencies and the National Guard in DC and warnings to do the same in other cities to combat crime.

Faruqui:

"How do we reestablish faith in people in DC that they're not going to be wrongly arrested, when the hobby, or whatever, the interest of the moment, if we move to Chicago or whatever city, Baltimore, or whatever next thing it is that catches the administration's interest, what are we, the people left here in Washington, DC, who have actually lived here, had to suffer through whatever is happening, how am I supposed to reestablish confidence in every defense lawyer and defendant that they are being treated fairly and rightly?"

Have to "suffer," the judge says.

As I have noted repeatedly, Faruqui signed hundreds of arrest warrants for J6ers including the unlawful 1512c2 felony. In one case, Faruqui found a woman in criminal contempt after she refused to answer his questions and willingly submit to conditions of release on her nonviolent misdemeanors charges.

He raised no such objections (to my knowledge) about the treatment of J6ers or berated Biden's DOJ for bringing near-daily cases to the DC courthouse.

Faruqui:

"I'm absolutely just beyond words as to what is happening and that we are just acting like this is normal. This is not only abnormal, it is now we are at past the question of constitutional crisis and academic thinking.

This is not hypothetical. What is being done? It is implausible, illegal, immoral for one person in our country to be treated like this, and now we are getting into double digits. What is being done?"

Faruqui misrepresents why these cases are being dismissed--he refuses to aknowledge the partisan bias at work by DC grand juries who are protesting the Trump administration by refusing to bring criminal indictments sought by Trump's DOJ. (I believe there are six such known cases as of now.)

Faruqui: "There seems to be just a complete disregard for the impact this is having on the people who are getting arrested and then released or dismissed. They are our fellow citizens.

This is not how we treat criminals, we don't treat them that way. We certainly do not treat presumed innocent people this way, let alone people who are our fellow Americans."

Keep in mind--Dana has a rap sheet a mile long:

Faruqui: "There seems to be a complete disregard for the traumatic effect that's having not just on the city, its citizens, the court, the AUSAs who are working all night and day to satisfy some sort of, you know, whatever this fantasy is or idea that there's going to be some great showing.

There are consequences. And right now, Mr. Dana is suffering those consequences."

Faruqui lauds the idea of a "deep state" of career prosecutors internally protesting the president's approach and the authority of AG Pam Bondi.

This is truly WILD:

"So if the United States Attorney [Pirro] wants to take this as a new tactic to just arrest people and detain them, she will find the court will hold a line." (Dana was not held by the feds but by local DC police. The prosecutor tried to raise that important fact with Faruqui but he did not care.)

"And I know that the U.S. Attorney's Office is full of U.S. attorneys who are continuing to hold the line and fight to hold the line. And I give great credit to the courage of the AUSAs who stay there, because the court can't do it on its own. We need dedicated -- what other people call the deep state, I would call that principled AUSAs, principled Department of Justice employees, the ones who didn't get fired for no reason apparently. (No reason--another lie.)

The ones who stay there, I am deeply grateful that you had the courage to come here today, stand in front of me and listen to me be appalled by what is happening in your office. That takes true courage."

Faruqui's partisan hyperbole is off the charts--and again this has nothing to do with the defendant before him:

"So after this dalliance, this fun little hobby of playing police for people at the administration, playing cops and robbers like children is over, how do we, the city, continue on and try to reestablish confidence that the rule of law has not be flushed down the toilet?"

And the grand finale:

"I don't even know what day it is -- September 4th, we still have a constitutional democracy, we still have a Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment still, for now, means something, although it may not to people in positions of authority in this administration.

So when that -- when we get past that Rubicon, we'll see again. We'll continue to test. Like a child, we keep having people testing and testing to see how much can the court handle, how much can the Constitution handle?"

Defund and dismantle this court system.