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Trump names Fox News host and judge Jeanine Pirro as top DC federal prosecutor Trump names Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as top DC federal prosecutor
(41 minutes later)
Move comes after US president withdrew nomination of Ed Martin, a GOP loyalist who supported January 6 pardons Move comes after US president withdraws nomination of Ed Martin, GOP loyalist who supported January 6 pardons
Donald Trump has replaced the top federal prosecutor in Washington DC with Jeanine Pirro, a judge and Fox News host, after a key Republican senator said he would not support the loyalist initially selected for the job. Donald Trump said on Thursday he would name Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host and former state-level prosecutor, to be the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia after a key Republican senator said he would not support the loyalist initially selected for the job.
Pirro, who joined Fox News in 2006, was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester county court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney. Pirro, a former district attorney of Westchester county, New York, is a diehard Trump supporter whose false claim that the 2020 election was rigged by Dominion Voting Systems was used against Fox in court.
Trump tapped Pirro to at least temporarily lead the nation’s largest US attorneys’ office after pulling his nomination of Ed Martin, a former Missouri Republican party chair and ardent supporter of Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election, earlier on Thursday. The move to select Pirro pulled Trump out of a fraught situation after he was forced to withdraw the nomination of Ed Martin, who has been serving as the interim US attorney since the start of Trump’s second term.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was naming Pirro as the interim US attorney in Washington DC, but didn’t indicate whether he would nominate her for the Senate-confirmed position on a more permanent basis. Interim US attorneys can serve for 120 days until they need to be confirmed permanently by the Senate. If they do not win confirmation, or if the president has not named a successor, the vacancy is filled by the judges who sit on the bench in federal district court in Washington.
“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. She is in a class by herself,” Trump wrote. The chief US district judge in Washington is James Boasberg, who Trump sees as a judicial adversary, after he blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members and then opened a contempt inquiry after his injunction was flouted.
The president had in January appointed Martin as interim US attorney in Washington DC, an office that oversees both felony prosecutions in the capital city as well as many national security cases. Trump had been left in a bind with Martin, who was seen to have hurt his chances for confirmation by being overly aggressive with threats to criminally prosecute Trump’s political adversaries, including the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, people familiar with the matter said.
Martin had quickly made clear he intended to use the role to defend Trump, writing on social media that the office would act as “President Trumps’ [sic] lawyers” and saying he would not hire graduates of schools that practiced the diversity policies the president has vilified. Even if that behavior endeared him to Trump’s wider base, Senate Republicans recoiled at Martin’s threat to prosecute Schumer, the people said, because senators have a history of protecting their own and because they worried about a Democratic appointee acting similarly in the future. Republican North Carolina senator Thom Tillis said he would not support Martin’s nomination.
Interim US attorneys must leave the role after 120 days unless they are confirmed by the Senate. Earlier this week, Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who serves on the chamber’s judiciary committee, said he would not advance Martin’s nomination, denying the GOP the votes needed to get his nomination through the committee. Martin also lacked allies at the justice department, where senior officials privately grew exasperated at his social media pronouncements that they felt made his US attorney’s office appear dysfunctional, and were not there to advocate on his behalf as his confirmation loomed.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Trump called Martin “a terrific person” but said “he wasn’t getting the support from people that I thought”. For instance, Martin had quickly made clear he intended to use the role to defend Trump, writing on social media that the office would act as “President Trumps’ [sic] lawyers” and saying he would not hire graduates of schools that practiced the diversity policies the president has vilified.
He added: “He wasn’t rejected, but we felt it would be very, it would be hard. And we have somebody else that we’ll be announcing over the next two days who’s going to be great.” NPR also reported on ties between Martin and Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a January 6 rioter whom federal prosecutors called a “Nazi sympathizer”. Martin had told the Senate “I am not close with him”, despite appearing with Hale-Cusanelli at events and praising him.
Tillis, who will be a prime target of Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, cited Martin’s support for Trump’s pardon of January 6 insurrectionists on his first day in office. Trump announced Martin’s replacement in a on his social network Truth Social, praising Pirro as “in a class by herself”. She is the latest in a string of Fox News figures tapped by Trump for government posts, a list that includes the defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
“I have no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January the sixth, and that’s probably where most of the friction was,” Tillis told reporters at the Capitol. Pirro agreed on Thursday to take over the position and start unwinding her lucrative Fox News career at short notice, two people familiar with the discussions said, saving Trump from the ignominy of Martin’s nomination sinking in the Senate and then having Boasberg choose a replacement.
“If Mr Martin were being put forth as a US attorney for any district except the district where January 6 happened, the protest happened, I’d probably support him, but not in this district.” She has not held a law enforcement job since she stepped down two decades ago as a Republican district attorney in Westchester County, New York, to pursue failed bids for higher office before becoming a major Fox News host with her own show and co-host duties on The Five.
The top judiciary committee Democrat, Dick Durbin, welcomed Martin’s withdrawal. But with Pirro agreeing to take the job, Trump now has a longtime friend and reliable line into one of the most important and powerful federal prosecutors offices at the justice department, which itself is being led in large part by his own personal defense lawyers.
“Mr Martin’s record made it clear that he does not have the temperament or judgment to be entrusted with the power and responsibility of being US attorney for the District of Columbia. I’m relieved to see that his nomination will be withdrawn by the White House,” Durbin said in a statement. Pirro has known Trump for decades, and their relationship put herself at personal risk by repeating Trump’s false 2020 election fraud. Dominion Voting Systems named her in its defamation suit against Fox, which settled and acknowledged her statements were false.
Earlier this month, National Public Radio reported on ties between Martin and Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a January 6 rioter whom federal prosecutors called a “Nazi sympathizer”. Martin had told the Senate “I am not close with him”, despite appearing with Hale-Cusanelli at events and praising him. But Trump had also been an ally to Pirro and her family. In the final hours of his first term, Trump pardoned Albert Pirro, Pirro’s former husband and notably his one-time lawyer and lobbyist, who had been convicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion in 2000.
Martin is known for being active on X and, shortly after Trump announced the withdrawal of his nomination, posted what appears to be a doctored photo of himself dressed as the pope. Pirro earned her law degree from Albany Law School before becoming a local prosecutor in New York who worked on domestic violence cases. She has been floated for various jobs in the Trump administration, including attorney general. ABC News earlier reported she was under consideration for the role.
Pirro is the latest in a string of Trump appointments to come from Fox News, a list that includes the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend. Robert Mackey contributed reporting
A 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, Pirro has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin. She led one of the nation’s first domestic violence units in a prosecutor’s office.
She became a ubiquitous television pundit during OJ Simpson’s murder trial, often appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live. During her time on Fox News, she frequently interviewed Trump.
Pirro was also named in a lawsuit brought in 2021 by the voting technology company Smartmatic USA, who sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company had helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7bn from the defendants.
In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
This story was amended on 8 May 2025 to correct that Ed Martin was appointed in January, not February.
This story was amended on 8 May 2025 to correct that Ed Martin was appointed in January, not February.