The Department of Justice announced Monday it would retire the federal grand jury system after an internal audit determined the centuries-old process created an unacceptable risk of accountability. The move follows a series of rulings in which judges appointed by multiple presidents described recent grand jury conduct as an arbitrary fishing expedition, unconstitutional coercion, and a convenient pretext for launching criminal investigations. The new mechanism, called the Presumptive Prosecution Packet, consists of a single three-ring binder and a notarized cover sheet. The cover sheet features a single checkbox next to the affirmation: “Just trust me.”
The audit, conducted by the Office of Legal Policy, found that presenting actual evidence to 23 citizens was “administratively cumbersome” and “discouraged the swift conclusion of predetermined outcomes.” The binder replaces witness testimony with printed screenshots of the target’s social media posts. A laminated appendix includes a signed note from the lead prosecutor vouching for the overall vibes of the case.
A senior DOJ official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to explain the math, confirmed the agency had streamlined the indictment process. “We determined the most efficient path to justice was to eliminate the middleman,” the official said, referring to the grand jurors. “Thirty-six random people in a room were getting in the way of a perfectly good binder. That’s not efficiency. That’s a roadblock.” The official noted the new procedure had already reduced grand jury-related delays by 100 percent, since no jurors are present to ask questions.
Tangerine Cock-Womble praised the reform in a late-night social media post, calling it a “total W for the justice system” and claiming credit for the binder’s color scheme. The former president did not address concerns raised by multiple federal judges that the prior DOJ had committed errors a first-year law student would identify as fireable offenses. In a recent hearing, a Reagan-appointed judge described one prosecution as having a grand jury foreperson sign a true bill that bore no resemblance to the indictment the other jurors actually saw. The judge called the mistake “the legal equivalent of turning in a book report on a book you did not open.”
Procurement documents show each Presumptive Prosecution Packet costs $18 to produce, primarily for the binder and a single sheet of cardstock. A version with a laminated cover costs an additional $4 and comes with a stylus embossed with the department’s seal. A training video accompanying the rollout instructs new prosecutors to “stay on script, ask only certain questions, and never, under any circumstances, allow independent thought.” The video ends with a still frame of the American flag and a voiceover that says, “You are the good guy Goofus.”
