A federal magistrate judge delivered a scathing rebuke to Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, for what he called a dangerously flimsy attempt to jail a D.C. attorney and West Point graduate over a minor altercation with National Guard troops.
During a Thursday hearing, Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui rejected the government’s motion to detain Paul Anthony Bryant, calling the case “perhaps one of the weakest requests for detention I have seen.”
Faruqui, known for not mincing words from the bench, appeared stunned by the nature of the charges and the government’s push to hold Bryant over a weekend. “This is perhaps one of the weakest requests for detention I have seen and something that, prior to two weeks ago, would have been unthinkable in this courthouse,” he told Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Bove.
According to WUSA-9 News, Bryant was arrested Wednesday for allegedly “throwing his left shoulder” into an Ohio National Guardsman patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C., alongside Delaware troops. The vague language of the charge — in a city now crawling with law enforcement — sparked immediate concern from the defense and from within the judiciary itself.
The situation became urgent enough that Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey requested an emergency detention hearing the following day. “He was concerned about detaining someone in a case that appears to be very weak,” Faruqui said, echoing Harvey’s unease.
Bryant, a lawyer and decorated military veteran, had braced for a weekend behind bars due to backlogs in the court system, a ripple effect of President Donald Trump’s recent directive flooding D.C. with federal arrests. But Faruqui saw the arrest for what it was: a low-level encounter being blown up into a criminal threat, and he didn’t hold back when identifying the double standard.
The judge pointed directly at the political overtones now warping federal prosecutions — particularly the contrast with Trump’s sweeping pardons of January 6th defendants. “To charge people for what seems to be lesser conduct and then say they’re so dangerous they have to be locked up,” Faruqui said, pausing to let the irony hang in the courtroom.
He added that the Trump pardons have put federal prosecutors “in an impossible position,” implicitly calling out Pirro’s office for either playing politics or capitulating to it.
The move by Pirro’s prosecutors to jail Bryant appears increasingly untenable in light of the glaring inconsistency Faruqui laid bare: how can someone be detained over a shoulder bump when those who attacked the Capitol and law enforcement officers walked free with presidential absolution?
Faruqui ordered Bryant released and set a preliminary hearing for September 10. Whether Pirro’s office will continue to pursue the case remains unclear — but after Thursday’s tongue-lashing, they’ve been put on notice: the courtroom is not a tool for political theater.
And for now, Bryant walks free — a symbolic counterpoint to the chaos still emanating from January 6th and its long legal shadow.
