Bulwark Takes - NOT GUILTY! Why the “Sandwich Guy” Verdict Matters

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

JVL and Sarah Longwell take on the absurd “Sandwich Guy” trial—where prosecutors literally made a federal case out of a thrown sandwich.

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Somebody would say, oh, you don't have to make a federal case out of it. Yeah. Do you remember that? Like the dismissive way. It's been like, come on. Get off your high horse. So, you know, Judge Janine Piro, who is, I guess, like a high ranking member of the Justice Department now.

made a literal federal case out of the guy throwing a sandwich and at a cop. And when she couldn't get a grand jury to indict him on like her federal charges, she dropped it down to misdemeanor, was able to get a misdemeanor, got the officer up there talking about how he felt the impact through his ballistic vest. And there were onions and mustard everywhere. And the jury looked at this and said, get the fuck out of here. It's a great day for America. Great. It's a great day for sandwiches all across America. Again, I just want to be clear on my position here, which is you shouldn't throw things at law enforcement officials. That being said, these guys are such big babies. And if they were trying to make a. And I think the reason he got acquitted is because, A, they were like, I'm sorry, you smelled mustard. They were they also were like, but the sandwich remained wrapped. Like, like, sorry. It came.

down to the actual, they actually had to debate this. They actually had to look at the evidence. The evidence was the sandwich remained contained in its wrapper. It hit him on its tactical vest, which, you know, can take bullets. So I do not think they felt like there was the harm done that was worth going after this guy. Look, I'm not going to lie. I got a T-shirt with free DC on it, with the Banksy painting, the guy with the sandwich. in his hand, because I guess it sort of is a stand in for the absurdity of the moment.

But it's wrapped in like a real military force in the streets. But you can see how for average people, both, you're like, okay, the guy threw a sandwich. Like, have you been to a, have you been to a hockey game? Like, if you've been, I don't, it feels like such small ball. And also it's like, you shouldn't have been here in the first place, is my guess. a big part of what the jury said. Like, yeah, people are mad that you're an occupying force in D.C. And frankly, that is a current matter under dispute in the law is whether they should

have been there in the first place, whether or not, you know, their presence is doing more to destabilize things than stabilize things. And so all of that stuff got kind of wrapped into this as a political issue. And also, I bet the jury just wanted to hand Judge Box of Wine and Elle, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is something we're starting to see. We're going to see, I bet, more of it in Chicago because there will be, as the feds in Chicago start to attempt to prosecute, you saw they had an indictment against the gal who's running for Congress out there.

Cat can't remember her last name. I'm sorry. At the Goose. Sure. That vote cat. Anyway, like the indictment is. They're going to do a lot of this with attempts to create. criminalize the people who they're beating up, basically.

And that's what it is. It's like federal agents go and wail on some citizen who it is not obvious has done anything wrong. And then in order to cover their tracks, they trump up charges against them to explain why they beat on them. Like that just is how it is. And the indictments, again, are pretty weak sauce. And I just, the criminal justice system is one of our big hedges. against authoritarianism here because you still do have to get

a jury of 12 normal people to look at this shit and go along with it, right? And where I would not trust 12 congressional Republicans to like look at the evidence and come to a reasonable conclusion, 12 normal people,

yeah, okay. Like, you know, you're going to get one or two the odds are. You're going to get one or two people on there who are reasonably intelligent and have reasonably good judgment. They send a note to the judge basically asked,

about, like, what's the difference between bodily injury and what was the, I can't remember what the other phrase was. Bodily harm, I think, yeah. But it was like, you could tell they were basically trying to decide, like, what is the standard of harm that needs to be caused here? Because the guy did just get hit with the sandwich. So I feel like it probably doesn't meet the threshold of bodily harm. It's not really about harm, right?

It's about authoritarianism. It's about saying to the citizens, how dare you mock us? Your job is to obey us and respect our authority. And if you don't, we will make up charges and we will go to the court and just make shit up and try to put you in jail, which is what this is, right? This is an administration that wasn't authoritarianism would never have pursued something like this because it wouldn't matter to them that somebody thinks. threw a sandwich at a cop. And that's the big tell here, right? It matters because the whole

project is premised upon getting people to obey in advance and have them be terrified of your authority. Respect my authority. I mean, the thing is you do have to have the rule of law, but this is where, you know, the thing about our judicial system is it doesn't exist in a vacuum from public opinion. And I think this is why pushing back meaningfully, I don't think that necessarily includes throwing a sandwich that you can see why people grab onto that as a totem for pushback.

But here's the thing that has been, I think, really meaningful. There's been massive protests against having ice in the National Guard in the streets, massive no-kings protests. and almost to a person, people are not taking the bait, right? The National Guard in the streets is bait. They are trying to bait people in to bad behavior. And this is why I don't want people throwing sandwiches because actually what has been enormously effective.

Like they want the sandwich guy, not just the you will respect or authority, but they want to be like, see, see what people are doing. They're out of control, right? They want pretext to crack down. Maybe you don't want a million sandwich guys, but one sandwich guy as a symbol that everybody else can rally around and then use to mock them, that's kind of useful, right? I think that's right.

I think it's that you do not want widespread, um, throwing things at these cops. Like that is, that is bad optics. That doesn't work for harnessing public opinion. You're right. I mean, there, there probably needs, this is like the right balance where big chunk of civil society is finding ways to peacefully protest, uh, to, to make sure that they, are seen, but not giving anybody a reason to crank heads. And that has actually been a problem for them.

Like, they're sort of like, all right, we still have the National Guard there. And people aren't taking the bait. While at the same time having some people doing almost comical civil disobedience. Yeah, like the furries and the people in the blow up animal costumes. I just want to say one more thing. So law enforcement filing bogus charges is. an enormous problem. It has always been a problem. This is a, you know, cops and prosecutors do this all the time on the reg. Sometimes they do it because they're corrupt. Sometimes they do it just because

overcharging is part of the way our legal system works, because you overcharge and hopes that you can get a plea deal instead of having to go to trial. But it isn't just like making up bodily harm for sandwich guy. It's stuff like down in the Eastern District of Virginia, where you have career prosecutors either firing or getting fired or resigning because they're being told to charge people who they do not believe there is sufficient evidence to charge. It's the same thing. This is, I mean, it's happening at two different levels of the criminal justice system, but that's the same thing.

You know, going after Jim Comey and Letitia James is the same thing as going after sandwich guy. That level of corruption from the state is unbelievably dangerous. And they're also doing horrible things to Americans. I mean, they're doing, like, they're sending people to foreign gulags wrongly. But they are also like the case of George Redis that Tim was talking about, right? This guy's just trying to drive to work. He's an American military guy born here. They break his car window. They tear gas him. They drag him out. They throw him in solitary confinement. Like, it is a horrific story. They are abusing their power. The idea that a jury of this guy's peers said, no, we are not going to take this minor infraction and turn it into a federal case or even a misdemeanor case. You guys are the ones that are overreaching here. Happens in the broader context of a world in which they're doing things like this to George Redis and many, many other people because they're trying to project this authoritarian, you know, menace on people. And so good on that jury for saying, yeah, we're not going to let you do this to American

citizens. I mean, having sandwich guy get acquitted 48 hours after a blue wave washes over the entire mid-Atlantic feels pretty good. When's the last time you and I sat together on a Thursday and said, huh, it's been a pretty good week so far. It's been a while. It's been a minute. Guys, she's Sarah Longwell, my best friend. I'm JVL. We're over at the bulwark. Hit like, hit subscribe, follow the channel. We will maybe have more good news for you next time even. Imagine that. Good luck, America.