The trial for Sean Dunn, famously known as the “Sandwich Guy” who threw a sub at a federal agent in Washington, D.C., is fully underway and there is some comedy gold going down in the courtroom.
Border Patrol Agent Gregory Lairmore took the stand Tuesday, nearly three months after being nailed in the chest with a hoagie.
“It smelled of onions and mustard,” Lairmore said on the stand, claiming he got a whiff after it “exploded” across his bulletproof vest.
The assistant U.S. attorneys prosecuting the case added to the hilarity with their court-submitted claim that “the defendant is being prosecuted for the obvious reason that he was recorded throwing a sandwich at a federal officer at point-blank range.”
Dunn, a 37-year-old Air Force veteran, was a welcome example of humor in the face of the violent force being used on protesters across the country. But he also exemplifies the Trump administration’s over-the-top legal attacks on opposing voices.
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In August, Dunn was a Justice Department paralegal and just one of many frustrated protesters who took to the streets of the nation’s capital after President Donald Trump sent in Border Patrol agents and the National Guard in response to what he labeled as a chaotic, unruly city plagued by crime and homelessness.
After the police carried out a 20-man operation to raid Dunn’s home and arrest him, the Department of Justice sought federal assault charges with a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, which is a hefty price for lobbing a sub.
Fox News talking head-turned-U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro took it upon herself to seek maximum penalties for all protesters arrested in D.C., actually.
Which, when you think of it, feeds into the argument that the Trump administration is carrying out cruelty for cruelty’s sake against anyone who resists his autocratic moves.
Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh is facing her own federal indictment for allegedly slowing down an ICE officer’s vehicle by sitting peacefully on the ground.
Then there was Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumni and legal U.S. resident who was thrown into a Louisiana ICE detention facility thousands of miles away from his wife and newborn child because of his activism and advocacy for Palestine.
But the protesters’ arrests, particularly Dunn’s and Abughazaleh’s, merely frame a larger picture of the cruelty being carried out against immigrants in the U.S.
Trump’s second term has seen pregnant women manhandled, day laborers ambushed outside of Home Depots, and immigrant families cowering in their homes in fear of ICE and Border Patrol’s wrath. And for those taken into custody, the alleged inhumane conditions in their facilities alone have been reason for protest as well.
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Then again, if you ask Trump and his lackeys, it’s the radical, frog-suit wearing leftists protesting in the streets that deserve the accusations of violence.
And while Dunn’s trial is still underway, the Justice Department’s ham-handed attempt to paint a sandwich as a prison-worthy weapon only adds to the Trump administration’s pile of bologna.
