Senate confirms Jeanine Pirro as top federal prosecutor for D.C.

The Senate on Saturday confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in a 50-45 vote along party lines.

The 74-year-old Trump loyalist previously served as a judge and prosecutor in Westchester County, New York, and has been interim U.S. attorney since May.

President Donald Trump withdrew his first choice, Ed Martin, a right-wing podcaster and “Stop the Steal” organizer with a history of controversial statements, after his nomination faltered over his past advocacy for the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot defendants charged with assaulting police officers.

Pirro was one of the last nominees confirmed during a rare Saturday session before senators headed home for the rest of the month.

Trump pressured Republican senators to remain in Washington and confirm a backlog of nominees. Republicans have accused Democrats of obstruction for forcing time-consuming votes to confirm the president’s picks, rather than allowing some of them to be confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent, as was common under previous administrations.

Republicans in the majority spent days negotiating with Democrats to allow the Senate to confirm more nominees before senators left town, but no deal came together.

“Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country,” Trump wrote Saturday night on social media.

“In a fit of rage, Trump threw in the towel, sent Republicans home and was unable to do the basic work of negotiating,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) told reporters Saturday night.

Pirro is one of a number of Fox hosts that Trump has recruited for the administration, and fits the mold of many of his appointees: combative, camera-ready and loyal enough to have sought to discredit the results of the 2020 election that he lost, the Washington Post reported previously.

In the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, Pirro had cast doubt on the credibility of Joe Biden’s election victory in statements that aired on Fox. After Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, however, she walked back those comments, instead calling the attack “deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal.”

Pirro’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were included in the $2.1 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, which led the broadcaster to settle the case for $787.5 million in 2023. She is also a defendant in a similar defamation lawsuit by voting software maker Smartmatic. That case is pending.

In a written response to senators’ questions ahead of her confirmation that was obtained by the Post, Pirro declined to offer thoughts on whether those convicted in the Jan. 6 riot cases should have been pardoned, and she sidestepped several other questions, including whether there would ever be a legal basis for someone from the executive branch of government to defy a federal court order.

Pirro’s confirmation to one of the nation’s highest-profile prosecutor’s offices was met with mixed reactions.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, described her record on issues including the Jan. 6 riot, election denialism and Trump’s immigration policies as “deeply troubling.”

“President Trump has been using the Justice Department to protect his allies and go after his enemies, and Ms. Pirro has proven to be a willing accomplice in weaponizing the justice system,” Durbin said in a statement. “She is not fit to be the U.S. Attorney for our nation’s capital and I believe it’s a grave mistake my Republican colleagues voted to confirm her.”

“She is simply a loyal political acolyte and sycophant of the president,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said in a floor speech ahead of the confirmation vote.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called Pirro “a warrior for law and order” in a post on X. The D.C. Police Union congratulated Pirro and said it looked forward to working with her “to hold criminals accountable and reduce crime.” Pirro thanked them in response and promised to work with police to “clean up D.C.”

Deadlines are looming for dozens of Trump loyalists handpicked as interim U.S. attorneys, whose 120-day terms are set to expire in the coming months. The Justice Department last month deployed a complex procedural maneuver to keep Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer for Trump, as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, in a playbook it has used to extend the tenures of other polarizing prosecutors that bypasses the Senate’s role in confirming official nominees for the job.

During Pirro’s time as interim U.S. attorney, she instituted a policy of scrutinizing the immigration status of all criminal defendants in the District, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations. She will also oversee a portfolio of major cases, including the shooting deaths of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a couple who had just left a reception at the Capital Jewish Museum. Pirro said her office intends to investigate the killings as an act of terrorism and a hate crime.

For decades, Trump and Pirro have fraternized in the same Republican circles in New York. On her Saturday Fox News show, “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” Pirro delivered strident defenses of the president during his first term. In 2018, Pirro published a book titled “Liars, Leakers and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.”

Pirro’s former husband, Albert Pirro, served as Trump’s real estate attorney before being convicted of federal tax evasion in 2000 when she was district attorney. He was sentenced to 29 months and was released from federal custody in 2002, court records show. Trump pardoned him in 2021, during his first term.

In 2006, Pirro was investigated by federal prosecutors for seeking to bug the family’s boat to determine whether her husband was having an affair. Pirro called the investigation a “political witch hunt and smear campaign,” and said her marital discord was not the business of the prosecutors. No charges were filed.

In a statement on her confirmation, Pirro said: “The confidence placed in me by the President and affirmed by the Senate will not be in vain. I am committed to ensuring that the nation’s capital once again reflects the quality, safety, and promise of the citizens and our great country.”