Jeanine Pirro Backed by Senate Panel for Top DC Prosecutor (2)

Jeanine Pirro has moved a step closer toward becoming formally confirmed as Washington’s top federal prosecutor, months after President Donald Trump had to pull his first pick for the role after he failed to win enough support in the Senate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee — without any Democrats present — voted on Thursday to advance the former Fox News host’s nomination to be US attorney for the District of Columbia, where she’d oversee the nation’s largest federal prosecutor’s office.

All 12 Republicans on the panel voted in her favor and Senate Democrats didn’t vote, after walking out of the meeting in protest over the vote to move forward with the nomination of Justice Department official Emil Bove to be a federal appellate judge. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced the nomination as favorably reported to the Senate floor.

The office of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said in a press release Thursday that committee Republicans broke panel rules during the meeting, including by holding votes without a quorum, which requires that at least two members of the minority party present for business to be conducted.

Pirro has led the office in an interim capacity since May. Her predecessor, Ed Martin, saw his nomination for the role sink after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a Judiciary Committee member, refused to support him over Martin’s support for participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

Pirro’s advancement by the Senate panel wasn’t unexpected. Tillis, who has broken with his party on certain issues and isn’t running for reelection, told Bloomberg Law earlier this week that he planned to support Pirro.

Still, Senate Democrats have raised concerns about her record, including her past remarks denying the results of the 2020 presidential election that Joe Biden won.

Durbin said in a statement Wednesday, ahead of the panel vote, that Pirro is a “January 6 apologist” and “Donald Trump loyalist.”

In written questions to senators, Pirro sidestepped questions about whether immigrants have due process rights and if Trump’s calls for federal judges who’ve ruled against him to be impeached undermine the Constitution. She also declined to weigh in on Trump’s sweeping pardons of Capitol rioters.

Pirro wrote the department’s legal judgments “must be impartial and free from political influence to uphold the rule of law and maintain public trust.” However, she didn’t directly respond to a question about whether it’s proper for the president or White House to order a Justice Department investigation into a government official.

Television Host

Pirro, known as “Judge Jeanine” on her television programs, most recently hosted Fox News’ “The Five,” making her the latest of a slew of Trump appointees who previously worked for the conservative news channel. Pirro also spent 11 years hosting the Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” according to committee materials.

She was also one of the Fox News hosts named in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit over statements made about voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle the voting machine company’s claims.

Prior to becoming interim US attorney, Pirro hadn’t worked as a prosecutor for nearly two decades.

She previously was the district attorney in New York’s Westchester County from 1993 to 2006. She also served as a county court judge in New York in the early 1990s, according to information she submitted to the Judiciary Committee.

After her time as a prosecutor, she ran for New York attorney general as a Republican in 2006, but lost to Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

Pirro has emphasized her work on behalf of crime victims, including combatting hate crimes and domestic violence, saying in her Senate questionnaire that her calling “was and is to punish predators and to protect the public.”

During her tenure as interim chief prosecutor, the D.C. US attorney’s office filed federal charges against the man accused of fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in May. Washington prosecutors also announced last month the seizure of $225.3 million in cryptocurrency as part of an alleged money laundering network.