A federal grand jury in the United States has declined to indict a man for throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent who was on patrol as part of President Donald Trump’s deployment of force in Washington, DC.

The grand jury had been weighing the case of Sean Charles Dunn, a former employee at the Department of Justice (DOJ) who was charged with felony assault for the viral sandwich toss.

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But Wednesday’s decision to decline Dunn’s indictment was a stark rebuke to the Trump administration.

Indictments are usually a technicality in the prosecutorial process. There is a saying in the US legal system that a good prosecutor can convince a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich”.

But the rejection points to scepticism about the Trump administration’s push to bring severe charges against perceived political opponents and protesters.

On August 10, at around 11pm (03:00 GMT), Dunn was captured on video shouting at a federal agent, “You f***ing fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”

He then lobbed a sub-style sandwich at the agent’s shoulder. The agent and his colleagues responded by chasing Dunn across the street and tackling him to the ground.

Footage of the incident has since gone viral, and posters in the style of the subversive graffiti artist Banksy have popped up around the city, depicting the infamous sandwich hurl.

By August 14, Dunn was fired from his Justice Department position, with Attorney General Pam Bondi announcing his termination for the sandwich-throwing incident.

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“If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you,” Bondi wrote on social media. “Not only is he FIRED, he has been charged with a felony.”

She also framed Dunn’s actions as evidence that there was a “deep state” government conspiracy against Trump’s leadership.

“This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ,” she wrote.

Wednesday’s decision marked the second instance in recent days in which a grand jury declined to indict a person for the alleged assault of a federal officer.

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors failed in their third attempt to persuade a grand jury to charge protester Sidney Lori Reid for felony assault.

They have since stated they plan to file lower-level misdemeanour charges against Reid.

Reid had been filming a detainee transfer among federal immigration agents when they asked her to back away. They then tried to restrain her. Reid’s forceful movements resulted in scrapes to the back of one officer’s hands, according to prosecutors.

Since early August, Trump has led what he has described as a crackdown on the “out-of-control” crime in Washington, DC, prompting protests in response.

He has deployed more than 2,000 members of the National Guard to the capital’s streets, and agents from several federal agencies have conducted patrols and arrests.

Many of those officers are armed and masked, raising concerns about potential abuses of force and a lack of accountability.

Critics have also pointed out that local police statistics, shared by the Justice Department, found that violent crime in Washington, DC, was at a 30-year low, although Trump has dismissed those numbers as “phoney”.

On Tuesday, Trump defended the militarisation of Washington’s streets, describing the capital as “like a jungle”. He also repeated past statements that he had authorised the troops to respond to disrespectful behaviour.

“They’re real soldiers. There’s no games. I said, ‘You don’t have to be politically correct.’ And you know the way they used to spit in the face of the soldiers?” Trump asked at a cabinet meeting.

“ I said, ‘You spit. We hit.’ And they’re totally authorised to do that.”

The effort in Washington, DC, is not the first time Trump has made a show of military force since taking office in January for a second term.

In June, for example, the Republican president sent the National Guard to Democrat-led California to respond to protests against his immigration policies. That move came despite the objections of local officials.

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“Through his manufactured emergency, President Trump is engaging in dangerous political theater to expand his power and sow fear in our communities,” Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said in a statement.

“Sending heavily armed federal agents and National Guard troops from hundreds of miles away into our nation’s capital is unnecessary, inflammatory, and puts people’s rights at high risk of being violated.”

The US president has recently threatened to extend the DC-style crackdown to other cities, such as Chicago and Baltimore.