Jeanine Pirro Named Interim US Attorney: A Step Toward Politicizing Justice !
Just when you thought the Trump administration could not find someone less qualified than Ed Martin to serve as the top prosecutor in Washington DC, they managed to outdo themselves. Donald Trump just took the true social writing, I am pleased to announce that Judge jeanine pirro will be appointed the interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
jeanine pirro was assistant district attorney for Westchester County, New York, and then went on to serve as county judge and district attorney where she was the
first woman ever to be elected into these positions. During her time in office, Janine was a powerful crusader for victims of crime. Her establishment of the domestic violence bureau in her prosecutor’s office was the first in the nation. She excelled in all ways. In addition to her legal career, Janine previously hosted her own Fox News show Justice with Judge jeanine pirro for 10 years and is currently co-host of the five, one of the highest rated shows on television.
From TV Judge to Top Prosecutor—Who Is Jeanine Pirro?
jeanine pirro is incredibly well qualified for this position and is considered one of the top district attorneys in the history of the state of New York. She’s in a class by herself.
Congratulations, Janine Yeah that’s right Fox host Judge Janine is now the interim US attorney in Washington DC The one who was named in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for spreading election lies. The one who was suspended by Fox News for Islamophobic comments about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
The one whose ex-husband received a lastminute pardon from Trump on his way out the door in 2021 for tax evasion. This is who Trump put in charge of federal prosecutors in our nation’s capital If America wasn’t great before this ought to do it. The irony here is that the previous interim US attorney in DC, Ed Martin, was pretty bad.
Martin is a stop the steel organizer who was appointed by Trump on day one of his administration. This is a guy who called on diehard true Americans to work until their last breath to stop the steel at a rally the day before the January 6th attack on the capital. Martin had absolutely zero prosecutorial experience before Trump appointed him.
Instead his main qualifications were surprise his unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump and his work defending January 6 riers. Once in office, Martin immediately got to work firing prosecutors who had worked on January 6 cases demoting senior career attorneys to entry-level positions and launching investigations into Trump’s political enemies.
The guy was so extreme that he even presented an award to Timothy Hail Kuse nelli, a January 6 writer who had posed with a Hitler mustache and who the Justice Department called an avowed white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer. When questioned about this, Martin claimed he didn’t know about Hail Cousin’s background despite having mentioned the controversy in an earlier interview with him.
Martin’s nomination was so toxic that even Republicans couldn’t stomach it. That’s saying something. Senator Tom Till is of North Carolina, he’s a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced that he wouldn’t support Martin’s nomination effectively killing it considering Republicans have a 12-10 majority on that committee. But with Till is defecting that makes it 11 to1. And without a clear majority, Martin’s nomination is dead on arrival. It’s not able to leave that committee.
Till iswho by the way is no moderate, said that he could support Martin for every other US attorney position except Washington DC where January 6 happened. And so recognizing the writing on the wall, Trump announced yesterday that he was withdrawing Martin’s nomination.
His interim term expires on May 20th and without Senate confirmation somebody else would have needed to be appointed. At the same time we all breathed the collective sigh of relief because after all how could Trump possibly find someone worse than Ed Martin? Yeah we were wrong. If you thought Ed Martin lacked qualifications, wait until you get a load of Janine Piro’s resume for this position.
What these people have turned into is sad. What is happening? As I mentioned before, this is the same jeanine pirro who is at the center of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News. She repeatedly used her platform to spread baseless election fraud claims that Fox News eventually had to admit were false when they settled the case for $787 million. A Fox producer even warned in an email that Piro shouldn’t be put on air because she was pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the web.
Yep sounds like the perfect person to put in charge of an actual US attorney’s office in the nation’s capital. And yet, the reason that Piro got the job here is obvious. She was one of Donald Trump’s
earliest and most vocal defenders during the 2016 Access Hollywood tape scandal. She attended his belligerent election night speech in 2020 where he falsely claimed victory. And as I mentioned earlier Trump pardoned her ex-husband for tax evasion charges as one of his final acts in office in 2021. So, let’s be clear about what’s happening here.
Why Trump Chose Jeanine Pirro—Loyalty Over Legal Expertise!
After failing to install a Stop the Steel organizer as DC’s top prosecutor, Trump has now tapped a Fox News host who spread election lies and has a clear conflict of interest due to Trump’s pardon of her ex-husband. This isn’t about qualifications, and it certainly isn’t about justice. This is about Donald Trump installing a loyalist who will use the power of federal prosecution to target his enemies and protect his allies, just as it’s always been. Remember, the US Attorney for DC doesn’t just handle local prosecutions.
This office handles prosecutions of federal crimes in the nation’s capital, including those involving federal officials and federal facilities. In other words this is the office that would have jurisdiction over many of the investigations into Donald Trump himself, his administration officials, and his allies in Congress. So, when Trump puts someone like jeanine pirro in charge of that office, he’s not looking for a fair and impartial prosecutor. He is looking for a shield and a weapon. A shield to protect him and his allies from accountability and a weapon to go after his perceived enemies.
The scariest part of all of this is that there is virtually no check on Trump’s ability to appoint an interim US attorney. Unlike the permanent position, an interim appointment doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Donald Trump can put Piro in that position for 120 days without any congressional oversight. Very much in the same way he did with Ed Martin. And in 120 days, someone with a vendetta and a point to prove can do an extraordinary amount of damage to our justice system. From there, she might be confirmed by a rubber stamp Republican majority in the Senate.
Maybe Trump puts Don Jr. in charge because we live in hell, so why not? What we’re witnessing right now is nothing less than the weaponization of the Department of Justice. Something that Trump has falsely accused Democrats of doing for years. It is projection, pure and simple. And now he’s trying to make his accusations a reality by appointing people whose sole qualification is their willingness to do his bidding, regardless of law or ethics. If there was ever a moment to be alarmed by the direction of our Department of Justice under Trump, this is it.
The progression from Ed Martin to jeanine pirro isn’t a step sideways. It is a leap further into abyss of turning our justice system into a personal tool for the president’s retribution. So, as much as we wanted to have celebrated Tom Till is blocking Ed Martin’s nomination, we now are looking at someone even more dangerous taking his spot.