On Thursday night, President Donald Trump named Fox News pundit and conspiracy theorist Jeanine Pirro to serve as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. The choice was made after he dropped the nomination of Ed Martin for the position, as even Republican senators were apparently reluctant to advance the attorney who was a key part of the effort to undermine the 2020 election results when Trump lost.
But Pirro is cut from the same conspiratorial mold and has made a name for herself over the years on the right-wing Fox News channel as one of Trump’s most radical worshippers. Pirro has sung Trump’s praises and lashed out at his political enemies, clearly making an impression on him.
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Pirro previously served as a judge and district attorney in Westchester County, New York, before becoming a full-time Trump sycophant on Fox. In 2006, during her failed campaign to become NY state attorney general, she was accused of ignoring evidence that sent a man to prison. Jeffrey Mark Deskovic, who was later exonerated of the crimes of rape and murder with DNA evidence, said Pirro ignored requests to reopen his case.
Transitioning to become a Fox News pundit after her failed attempts at politics (she also ran for the Senate in 2005), Pirro has made her mark as a loud, true believer in Trump.
In her 2019 book “Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge: The Left’s Plot to Remake America,” Pirro proclaimed that Trump is a “nonstop, never-give-up, no-holds-barred human version of the speed of light,” and called him the Saquon Barkley of political negotiators, a reference to the star Philadelphia Eagles running back.
In addition to her 2019 book, Pirro has written several absurdly titled pro-Trump books, including “Crimes Against America: The Left’s Takedown of Our Republic,” and “Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.”
On air, her rhetoric has been similarly unhinged and disconnected from reality. In a 2017 rant, as Trump was being investigated in relation to Russian election interference, Pirro called for a “cleansing” in the Department of Justice.
Even inside Fox News, which has been the leading promoter of Trump since before he became a political figure, they have considered Pirro a crackpot.
Pirro, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is one of many Fox News personalities that Trump has poached for his administration.
As she promoted pro-Trump lies about the 2020 election being stolen, her own producer called her a “reckless maniac” in an internal communication. The network temporarily sidelined Pirro’s show because she pushed so many election falsehoods and said in emails she frequently went off on “conspiracy tangents.”
She was one of three Fox News figures along with the network itself that was sued in 2021 by Smartmatic USA for pushing election conspiracies about the company.
Trump has picked Pirro for one of the most important legal positions in the nation, but when he was on trial in 2024 she attacked the jury system, complaining that New York-based jurors would inherently be biased against him.
At other times, Pirro has expressed anti-Muslim bigotry. Fox even kicked her off air for a short period of time after she said Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota couldn’t be faithful to the Constitution because she wears a hijab.
Trump can’t stop transferring people from Fox News to his administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and several others all entered Trump’s mind through his obsessive Fox watching and have now infected the federal government.
When he isn’t using Fox as his staffing agency, he is propping up unqualified billionaires for key positions—it’s a big reason why Trump’s popularity has been tanking.
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