Interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith poisoned the federal grand jury to manufacture corrupt indictments, and three federal judges have now thrown them out. The court dismissed nine felony charges against nine defendants Friday after its order documented a pattern of misconduct that “began with some of the first words spoken to the grand jury” and “continued to penetrate the proceedings in off-the-record conversations, occurring on the breaks between indictments.” The dismissed charges ranged from felony possession of firearms and drug distribution to possession of child pornography. They are gone, but Smith remains.
The federal grand jury operates under a long-standing procedural asymmetry. It is an ex parte proceeding—legal shorthand for a one-sided process where only the prosecutor presents evidence and calls witnesses. Under this framework, the U.S. Attorney serves as the grand jury’s legal advisor, not its adversary, a role that grants the prosecutor broad latitude to guide a panel of civilians without legal training. Historically, appellate courts have shielded this latitude, treating even aggressive prosecutorial commentary as an inherent, accepted risk of a procedure designed to operate without defense scrutiny.
The judges in this case declined that shield. Their order identifies a structural subversion, not a procedural friction. When the interim U.S. Attorney spends the breaks between presentations coaching the jurors on what an indictment should look like, the advisory role collapses. The off-the-record conversations that “penetrate the proceedings” do not guide; they manufacture consent. Grand juries were constructed decades ago to act as a shield against executive overreach, insulating citizens from politically motivated or evidence-thin charges. A prosecutor who weaponizes the room’s asymmetry to manufacture those charges has turned the shield into a tool for the executive. He has transformed the grand jury into a platform for extra-legal prejudice, destroying the constitutional floor of the Fifth Amendment. An untainted grand jury is a constitutional requirement, not an administrative suggestion.
The pattern is documented and the immediate remedy is local. The nine dropped indictments are the only consequence. The U.S. Attorney remains in his post, untouched by any Justice Department action. Internal DOJ oversight has not intervened. As documented in prior reporting on these dismissals, similar grand-jury misconduct in federal district courts across the country routinely produces sternly worded judicial opinions rather than institutional accountability. The procedural defect persists. When a prosecutor’s off-the-record commentary is the only thing standing between a defendant and a prison cell, the grand jury process is an empty theater. The judges struck the charges. The system does not stop there, and it remains unclear whether the Department of Justice can legally sustain these prosecutions moving forward or if Smith’s prejudice has irretrievably tainted the evidentiary path.
This incident is not an outlier in the current DOJ regime. Whether it is Smith’s theater in Wyoming or other emerging patterns of Justice Department misconduct, the institutional rot flows from a failure to enforce the most basic procedural barriers. The grand jury exists specifically to protect citizens against overreaching prosecutors; when the prosecutor subverts that process, the entire machinery of the federal criminal justice system is discredited. By turning his office into a source of toxic prejudice, Smith has effectively vacated his own authority. This tenure will be remembered as a masterclass in prosecutorial dereliction: a prosecutor who viewed the grand jury not as an arbiter of probable cause, but as a subordinate tool for conviction, and the judges who finally had to say so.