NBC anchor David Gregory will not face charges for brandishing an ammunition magazine on NBC’s Meet the Press, Politico reports.
D.C. attorney general Irvin Nathan on Friday said he would decline to prosecute in the case involving the Sunday show host and any NBC staffers. In a letter to NBC’s attorney Lee Levine, Nathan wrote that after reviewing the matter, his office “has determined to exercise its prosecutorial discretion to decline to bring criminal charges against Mr. Gregory, who has no criminal record, or any other NBC employee based on the events associated” with the broadcast.
The office made its decision “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law, because under all of the circumstances here a prosecution would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia nor serve the best interests of the people of the District to whom this office owes its trust.”
Actually, a prosecution would show that the law is blind and does not grant favors to anyone based on their status. Instead, we’re confronted with the opposite. While Gregory skates for doing something intentional, others have been prosecuted for unintentionally running afoul of DC’s gun laws. Like Matt Corrigan.
In September 2011, former Army Specialist Adam Meckler was arrested at the VFW in the District because he happened to have a few long-forgotten rounds of ordinary ammunition in his bag. The veteran of both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was jailed and later accepted a plea deal, which he now regrets.
Is it fair that while Corrigan has this on his record forever, David Gregory escapes just because he brandished the magazine to make a political point? No. We’re not truly a nation of laws and fair justice anymore.
And of course, I don’t believe D.C. Police ever charged Jim Webb’s aide for carrying Jim Webb’s gun into a Senate building in 2007. Now, the Capitol police had jurisdiction of the building (and the U.S. attorney general dropped charges), but since teleporters haven’t been invented yet, that aide carried loaded weapons around D.C. to get to the building. Was that not a crime at the time? And it was a public story, very much so. The U.S. government did nothing, since it was a Senator issue and they did not want the grief. What did the D.C. Police do?
That they wouldn’t have done for me?
I’d like to point out also this is the same D.C. Police–assuming the story holds, which I presume it does–that gave Jim Treacher a jaywalking ticket after he got hit by a State Department SUV. Ticket issued by a cop not at the scene, for a location away from where the accident actually occurred.
D.C. probably needs to lose self-rule, and it may need to have an iron fist put on it. Lest it molest more citizens.
Never did hear how that went. Did the SUV driver ever get cited? Did Treacher beat the citation?
I don’t suppose it helps that the AG happens to be a friend of Gregory’s wife. Naw, that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it. How silly of me.
O God! Please give him incurable cancer this year.
I picked this fax number off a copy of the letter from the AGs office to NBC(at Legal Insurrection blog). Here it is 202-741-0580. Use it. I already did.
Dick Gregory seems to have been rewarded for something, and it’s not because his wife was in a play with the DA.
We need to recall this blatant criminal act every time this stooge opens his mouth – ESPECIALLY if the conversation involves gun laws in any manner as he obviously received preferential treatment.
The same people that brought us “Fast and Furious” now want to talk gun control??
If David Gregory is not in jail, then how can the government have any credibility in this?
Of course, if a regular citizen wants to use the Gregory precedent (officer, I had that 30 round clip at 3rd grade show-and-tell to demonstrate the evils of guns!) I’m sure the DA will use his discretion to make the charges go away.
Just as whenever I have a dispute with the IRS, I use the Geithner precedent to delay paying my taxes for a decade.
It’s time to inventory your “precious metals.” The time is almost upon us to “spend” them.
What a joke our country has become. Come on Muslims, take over already!
It would be great if Krauthammer pulled out an identical magazine on his next appearance at a news show located in D.C. Just whip it out, hold it up and lay it on the table without saying a word.