Pirro’s Nomination for DC US Attorney Poised to Advance (1)

Jeanine Pirro faces a clear path forward so far in her bid to lead the nation’s largest US attorney’s office, after her predecessor saw his nomination collapse over his support for Capitol rioters.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote Thursday on the nomination of the former Fox News host to serve as US attorney for the District of Columbia, and she appears poised to secure enough support to advance out of the Republican-controlled panel.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who rejected President Donald Trump’s first choice for the seat, Ed Martin, and tanked the nomination, told Bloomberg Law on Tuesday that he plans to support Pirro.

He said he’s seen instances in which Pirro has “transformed the environment” at the office while serving in an interim capacity.

“She demonstrated to me that she understands the management side of her role, and getting the most out of prosecutors that she said are top notch,” Tillis said. Tillis also said that Pirro shares his views on the participants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Tillis has announced he won’t run for re-election in 2026 and has broken with his party before. He came out against Martin, a “Stop the Steal” organizer and Trump loyalist who faced scrutiny for his past defenses of Capitol rioters, ties to a Nazi sympathizer, and frequent appearances on Russia-backed media networks.

Morale in the US attorney’s office plummeted under Martin, who fired over a dozen Jan. 6 prosecutors and oversaw the dismissal of hundreds of cases against rioters after Trump’s sweeping pardons.

Tillis ultimately said he wouldn’t support Martin over his views on Capitol rioters, and Trump pulled Martin’s nomination.

TV Host

Even if Pirro is advanced by the Judiciary panel, she faces a slower process on the Senate floor due to plans by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to hold up Justice Department political nominees.

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

In those Senate materials, Pirro emphasized her work on behalf of crime victims, including combatting hate crimes and domestic violence. She wrote that her calling “was and is to punish predators and to protect the public.”

If confirmed, the former host of Fox News’ “The Five” would be one of many Trump appointees who previously worked for the conservative news channel, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox & Friends host.

Still, she hasn’t worked as a prosecutor for nearly two decades, and her more recent background as a television host and author, including of a book on her reopening of a cold case that inspired HBO’s documentary “The Jinx,” may continue to influence her approach.

Shortly after she was tapped as interim US attorney, she posted a video on the social media platform X, where she introduced herself as “Judge Jeanine,” posed by the office water dispenser, and complained that federal prosecutors have to pay for their own water. “Ain’t it grand to be a part of the government?” she said sarcastically.

Before joining “The Five,” Pirro spent 11 years hosting the Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” according to committee materials. She faced backlash for anti-Muslim comments she made on her show about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Pirro 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.

‘Two Jeanine Pirros’

Her questionnaire to the panel, a form typically containing biographical information and matter-of-fact description of a nominee’s significant work, seems to draw on her prior experience as a true crime writer.

“Paul Cox was, in the parlance of Alcoholics Anonymous, a ‘recovering alcoholic.’ He was also a killer,” she wrote in one section while summarizing her most significant work, before describing how Cox “butchered” a couple living in his childhood home in 1988 and later confessed it to his addiction group.

In written responses to senators’ queries, also obtained by Bloomberg Law, Pirro sidestepped some questions on her legal views, including on whether immigrants have due process rights and whether presidential calls to impeach judges undermine the court and Constitution.

Asked more broadly if calls for impeachment or resignation of judges should be condemned, she affirmed “absent egregious circumstances.”

“There are two Jeanine Pirros: one is the Jeanine Pirro of bygone days who was a credible and experienced prosecutor, and the other is the MAGA-ized Jeanine Pirro who said such preposterous things on Fox News that she helped contribute to one of the largest civil judgments in American history,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee’s federal courts panel, told Bloomberg Law on Tuesday, referring to the Dominion case.

“The question for us, I think, is going to be, which Jeanine Pirro wants to be US attorney.”