A left-wing activist group is teaching liberals in Washington, D.C., and “across the United States” how to increase their chances of serving as jurors on cases brought by the Trump Department of Justice so they can undermine its chances of securing convictions, training materials reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Freedom Trainers, whose fiscal sponsor is the George Soros-funded group Community Change, is working to make “jury nullification”—the practice of voting against a conviction even if the defendant broke the law—a go-to legal weapon for the Left. Its sessions and training materials, reviewed by the Free Beacon, show how the group teaches “committed people” to gum up federal prosecutions.
The group tells attendees to keep their addresses current to ensure they receive summons. Then, during the jury selection process, it advises them to “Never mention jury nullification,” “Don’t signal an agenda,” and “say you’ll listen to the evidence before forming conclusions.” Once selected, the group tells its trainees to vote “not guilty” for any reason.
Freedom Trainers’ efforts—which have not been previously reported—underscore the difficulty the Trump administration faces in securing convictions in the nation’s capital and other blue bastions.
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Freedom Trainers describes itself as a “loose network of trainers teaching collective noncooperation.” It was established in late 2024 as its leaders pondered a second Trump administration. “Before Donald Trump’s election, an informal group of trainers—many with experience working under authoritarian regimes—began asking a sobering question: what would people need if he won?” its website states.
That question prompted Daniel Hunter, the founder of D.C.-based liberal activist group Choose Democracy, and Keya Chatterjee, the executive director of Free DC and former executive director of the US Climate Action Network, to form Freedom Trainers. The group’s members include a hodgepodge of left-wing activists. Author and Council on Foreign Relations member Maria J. Stephan, who recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, is listed as one of the group’s trainers. Though Hunter and Chatterjee are known for their activism in D.C., Freedom Trainers says it “has trained hundreds of thousands of committed people across the United States.”
During one recent webinar, Hunter raised the viral example of a man shown on video assaulting a federal agent with a sandwich. He argued that there are “a lot of possible reasons” those serving on a grand jury in the case could vote against an indictment. Jurors could say that the law the man broke is itself not just or constitutional. They could argue that the agent was not harmed. Or they could say that they were generally unconvinced by prosecutors’ arguments.
A pamphlet produced by the group makes the point more clearly: Attendees, it says, can vote not guilty for “any reason you believe is just.” The pamphlet emphasizes that jurors can vote against conviction “even if the technical elements of the crime were technically met. No explanation required. No punishment allowed. Totally legal.” A grand jury rejected felony charges for the man referenced in Hunter’s example.
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The post Left-Wing Activist Group Teaches Liberals How to Get Through Jury Selection and Vote ‘Not Guilty’ on Trump DOJ Prosecutions, Recordings Show appeared first on American Renaissance.
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