President Donald Trump’s second choice to become the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia sailed through a key committee on Thursday, July 17. The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send the nomination of former Fox News host and one-time judge Jeanine Pirro to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
Trump named Pirro the interim U.S. attorney and nominated her for the permanent position after the committee rejected his first choice, Ed Martin. He lacked experience as a prosecutor and had been an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., joined with Democrats to block Martin’s confirmation.
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Pirro is one of at least 23 Trump appointees who had worked at the conservative Fox News network. They include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Pirro’s legal opinions
Pirro’s confirmation hearing centered on a few in-depth questions on which she differed with Martin, The Washington Post reported. Under questioning from Democrats, Pirro said she disagreed with Martin on publicly identifying people who are under investigation but not charged with a crime.
She wrote, “While there can be circumstances that would be an exception to the rule, typically it is best to not name suspects during an investigation and let court filings speak for themselves,” she wrote.
Martin had said that if somebody could not be charged with a crime, his office might “name and shame” the person instead.
Assault on the Capitol
Another key piece of testimony involved the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. On his first day in office in January, Trump pardoned hundreds of people convicted in Jan. 6 cases, and Pirro declined to say whether she agreed with the pardon decision.
”The decision to issue a pardon is a power that belongs to the President,” Pirro wrote in a 78-page questionnaire she filled out for the Judiciary Committee. “If confirmed, I will focus on restoring integrity to the U.S. attorney’s office.”
When asked whether prosecutors who worked on those cases should be investigated or prosecuted, she responded, “Anyone who commits a crime that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt should be prosecuted.”
However, she wrote that Justice Department employees should not be fired or disciplined based on the cases they worked on, if they were properly conducted and authorized. She said personnel matters should be based on performance.
Opposition to her nomination
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, was not swayed by her answers.
“She’s a January 6 apologist,” he wrote on X, “siding with violent insurrectionists over law enforcement by supporting criminal charges against line prosecutors handling insurrection-related cases. She’s an election denialist, recklessly peddling President Trump’s Big Lie despite even her own Fox News producers and executives warning her to reel it in.”
