Overview
- On Tuesday, Oct. 13, House Oversight Chairman James Comer sent formal document requests to Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams covering records from Jan. 1, 2025, to the present as the start of a congressional probe.
- The committee asked for internal communications, advertisements, presentations, recordings, attendee lists, training materials, adviser names, and funding documents and set an Oct. 27 deadline for voluntary production.
- Comer says trainers instructed prospective jurors to present as neutral and to use jury nullification to acquit for political reasons, citing an Aug. 12 remark by Qiana Johnson that attendees have a “superpower” to nullify juries.
- Jury nullification lets jurors acquit despite evidence because they reject the law or its application, and legal experts say attending a workshop is not automatically disqualifying but that lying or withholding facts during voir dire can carry legal consequences.
- If the groups do not comply the committee could issue subpoenas, and the inquiry seeks to establish whether outside funding linked to fiscal sponsors helped organize the trainings and how that fits into the broader debate over prosecutions in D.C.