A Washington, D.C., man who hurled his sandwich at a federal agent during an anti-Trump protest says it was a political statement — not a crime. Now, a jury will decide if his act of defiance crossed the line.
According to The Associated Press, Sean Charles Dunn, a former Justice Department employee, is on trial for misdemeanor assault after throwing his submarine sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent outside a nightclub on August 10.
“No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parron told jurors Tuesday.
Dunn’s attorney, Julia Gatto, didn’t dispute that he tossed the sandwich — but said it was “a harmless gesture” and “an exclamation point” to his protest against President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the capital.
“It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” Gatto said. “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.”
Video of the incident quickly went viral, turning Dunn into a folk-hero symbol among Trump critics. Murals of Dunn mid-throw popped up across D.C. overnight.
“He did it. He threw the sandwich,” Gatto told the jury. “And now the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment — a thrown sandwich — into a criminal case, a federal criminal case charging a federal offense.”
A grand jury had initially refused to indict Dunn on a felony, forcing prosecutors to downgrade the charge to a misdemeanor — a rare setback for the Justice Department.
CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore, who was hit by the sandwich, described the attack in detail.
“The sandwich exploded when it struck my chest,” he said. “You could smell the onions and the mustard.”
Lairmore testified that Dunn had approached him and his colleagues, yelling “fascists,” “racists,” and “shame,” before throwing the sandwich and running away.
“He was red-faced. Enraged. Calling me and my colleagues all kinds of names,” Lairmore said. “I didn’t respond. That’s his constitutional right to express his opinion.”
Lairmore said his fellow agents later joked about the ordeal — gifting him a sandwich-shaped plush toy and a patch that read “felony footlong.” Dunn’s defense used that to argue the case is “overblown” and “worthy of a joke.”
Prosecutor Parron insisted politics had nothing to do with the charge.
“Respectfully, that’s not what this case is about,” he said. “You just can’t do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line.”
Dunn, who worked in the Justice Department’s criminal division, was fired shortly after his arrest when then-Attorney General Pam Bondi labeled him “an example of the Deep State.” He was later rearrested during a heavily armed raid that the White House promoted in a slickly edited video.
His defense team says Dunn is the victim of “vindictive and selective prosecution” for his political speech. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, has not yet ruled on that claim.
Dunn faces charges of assaulting, resisting, and interfering with a federal officer — the same category of crimes that dozens of Trump supporters were convicted of for assaulting police during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. All of them were later pardoned or had their cases dropped by Trump.
