WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital, filling the post after President Trump withdrew his first pick, conservative activist Ed Martin Jr., who has defended the Jan. 6 rioters.
Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed 50 to 45. Before becoming the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show “The Five” on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump.
Trump yanked Martin’s nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin’s outspoken support for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of them maiming police officers while trying to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat. Martin now serves as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. Trump pardoned all of those convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6.
In 2021, voting technology company Smartmatic USA sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company helped “steal” the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company’s libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7 billion from the defendants. A similar lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems resulted in the cable network agreeing to a $787-million settlement.
Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro’s nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove’s nomination to become a federal appeals court judge.
Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She 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.
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 of conspiracy and tax evasion crimes.
Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.