President Trump has announced that former prosecutor and current Fox News pundit Jeanine Pirro will be appointed United States Attorney for Washington D.C. “Jeanine 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,” he wrote on Truth Social in announcing the move. “She is in a class by herself. Congratulations Jeanine!”
Jeanine Pirro was elected as a judge in Westchester County in 1990, where she was then elected district attorney in 1993 and reelected in 1997 and 2001. She began her career at Fox News in 2011, working as a pundit until Trump’s recent appointment. Pirro was a named defendant in one of the defamation cases brought by voting machine companies over false claims of voter fraud in 2020, having spread misinformation from her cable news platform in the wake of the election.
Jeanine’s appointment comes after Trump withdrew the nomination of his previous candidate for the position, Missouri lawyer and political operative Ed Martin. “He is a terrific person. He wasn’t getting the support from people that I thought,” the president said at a White House event on Thursday. “I’m very disappointed in that.”
Martin was unable to gain the support of Senate Republicans who opposed his defense of rioters who breached the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that he had “no tolerance” for Jan. 6 rioters, which led to “friction” between him and Martin in a private discussion.
Martin was also facing heavy criticism for his support of a right-wing activist named Timothy Hale-Cusinelli, an alleged Nazi sympathizer. He did denounce Hale-Cusinelli last month, claiming not to know about the activist’s views, although Martin did interview him on his podcast and defended him over a scandal involving pictures Hale-Cusinelli took of himself dressed as Hitler. While the reference is very clear from the pose, as well as the trademark hair and mustache, Martin said in the interview that he only “looked vaguely” like Hitler.
Pirro would be the latest of many Fox News hosts to make it into his second-term government. As many as 21 other high-ranking officials in Trump’s second-term administration have appeared on Fox News as guests, contributors or hosts, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Trump also availed himself of Fox’s pundits in his first term, taking in well-known fixtures from the cable news channel like Sebastian Gorka and Ben Carson, Deputy Assistant to the President and HUD Secretary, respectively.
