The chairman of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee is investigating two D.C.-based activist groups over hosting what he called “jury nullification training sessions,” claiming that their instructions given to potential jurors were an illegal attempt to subvert federal prosecutors.
In a statement, committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) accused the groups — Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams — of coordinating to train “activists to conceal their biases during jury selection, infiltrate juries and acquit criminals based on political agendas rather than the law and evidence.” He demanded they produce documents and other information related to the sessions.
Cornell Law School defines jury nullification as when jurors reject evidence or refuse to apply the law to send a message about a social issue that is larger than the case itself. Essentially, jurors can find a defendant not guilty even if they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that they broke the law.
Comer shared copies of two letters sent to the groups, which referenced comments allegedly made by organizers at the training sessions, citing reports published by conservative media outlets earlier this year.
In the letter addressed to Qiana Johnson, a board member of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and well-known local organizer, Comer describes statements attributed to her in the reports where she allegedly hailed jury nullification as a “superpower” and expressed her desire to disrupt federal prosecutions.
Johnson, who was recently elected to serve as court clerk for Prince George’s County, declined to comment on the letter.
Comer said Johnson, a criminal justice reformer who received national attention during the coronavirus pandemic when she founded the accountability group Courtwatch PG, “made clear at this training session that one of the goals is to undermine prosecutions brought by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and other federal prosecutors.”
Messages sent to Free DC and Harriet’s Wildest Dreams seeking comment were not immediately returned. Comer’s letters referenced social media postings and websites from the organizations that were still online as of Tuesday afternoon.
“Jury duty is not just a civic responsibility; it is a powerful tool for ensuring fairness and justice,” the activist groups wrote in a September 2025 Instagram post about a juror teach-in. “As community members, our participation in juries is vital to safeguarding the rights of those who are most vulnerable to systemic biases.”
The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia did not respond to a request for comment, though Comer’s letter references comments reportedly made by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro in which she said she suspects biased people have “infiltrated” D.C. juries and prevented convictions.
Last month, Pirro’s office accused D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) of attempting to sway potential jurors in videos posted on social media ahead of his federal bribery trial.
Though Pirro had earlier expressed confidence in convicting White, the case ended in a mistrial. The jury voted 9-3 to acquit him, according to White’s defense attorney.
The House Oversight letters — while not legally binding subpoenas — demand that the groups produce documents and communications relating to the jury training sessions, any outside advisers who assisted in organizing the events and funding or grants used to support the program.
In the letters, Comer demanded a list of attendees for the jury training sessions.
Ira Robbins, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, said that particular demand raises “serious First Amendment concerns about freedom of association.” “Even when Congress has a legitimate oversight purpose, its investigative authority is not unlimited,” Robbins said in an email.
Robbins said that jury nullification is a “well-established phenomenon in American criminal justice.”
“Juries have the power to acquit defendants even when the evidence establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and those acquittals generally cannot be overturned,” he said. “But that power is not a legal right to disregard the law. Jurors are obligated to follow the court’s instructions and decide cases based on the evidence.”
Robbins said there is an important distinction between educating the public and instructing prospective jurors to conceal their biases from judges or lie during jury selection.
Comer’s letters referred to some comments that he alleges crossed that line. In one case, he wrote that a group called Freedom Trainers, which Comer said was a partner of Free DC, instructed trainees not to “signal the agenda.”
That comment and other instructions, Comer said, amounted to telling would-be jurors to present themselves, falsely, as unbiased “and avoid revealing ties to prison abolitionist groups during jury selection to intentionally hide their true intentions of serving on a jury.”
Robbins said that prospective jurors “must answer questions truthfully, but they are not disqualified simply because they hold strong political views or belong to activist organizations.”
“The critical question is what these organizations actually instructed people to do,” Robbins said. “The committee’s allegations should not be confused with established facts.”
Matthew Cavedon, director of the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, said jurors are constitutionally guaranteed in America’s criminal legal systems to serve as a check on tyranny and government overreach. That function is only possible, he said, if they are able to deliberate and decide cases based on circumstances that go beyond mere fact finding.
But potential jurors are often misled about that fundamental role, Cavedon said, and are told by judges that they “must convict” a defendant if they are proved factually guilty.
“The jury can only fulfill its role of being government by the people if it has the ability to say no,” Cavedon said.
As for the jury trainings, Cavedon said that it would be inappropriate to instruct potential jurors to be dishonest under oath or mislead a judge about their views.
“It’s also true that answering every question honestly and completely doesn’t mean necessarily volunteering every view someone holds,” he said.
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