Yesterday, ABC ran a guffaw-worthy story headlined, “Trump appoints Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as top prosecutor in DC.” It was classic Trump; part political theater, part middle finger to the establishment, and part Machiavellian chess.
From a purely legal perspective, it’s eyebrow-raising, to say the least. “Judge” Pirro, a Fox news commentator, hasn’t tried a case in decades. She was temporarily benched by Fox for inflammatory remarks about the 2020 elections, and was named as a defendant in the Dominion voting machine defamation case.
Trump appointed Judge Pirro after his preferred choice, Ed Martin, couldn’t clear the Senate confirmation gauntlet. Martin recently lost support among key Senate Republicans, which made his nomination politically dead on arrival. Specifically, Senator Thom Tillis, a weak Republican Senate Judiciary Committee member crucial to advancing Martin’s nomination out of committee, publicly spurned Martin since he’d defended several January 6th defendants and was prominent in the “stop the steal” moment.
Trump had to act, because a critical deadline was looming on May 20th. Under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), if the President does not confirm a new U.S. Attorney within 120 days of the previous interim appointment, then the D.C. Chief Judge —here, the notorious Judge Boasberg— could have appointed a U.S. Attorney to serve indefinitely until a permanent one was confirmed by the Senate.
By naming Pirro as interim U.S. Attorney, Trump temporarily bypassed the confirmation process. Under 28 U.S.C. § 546(c), interim appointments can serve 120 days. So he now has three months to confirm a permanent replacement.
Without any disrespect to Judge Pirro, Trump’s interim appointment of a Fox news opinion anchor instead of a, well, more traditional candidate, was a political hand-grenade, a way to punish Senator Tillis for refusing to advance Martin and focus public attention on Tillis’ stubborn refusal to cooperate.
If Trump had picked a milquetoast compromise candidate for Martin’s replacement, it would have signaled weakness. Instead, he chose someone even more controversial. It was classic brinksmanship— he’s forcing the GOP Senate to either go along or look weak and uncooperative by rejecting Pirro too.
Yesterday, as the second prong poking the Establishment in the eyeball, Trump shifted Ed Martin to, get this, three new jobs: Director of the “Weaponization Working Group,” Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Presidential Pardon Attorney.
If Martin is given real investigative power, it could become a full-blown counter-offensive within DOJ. We’re only guessing, but by announcing that Martin will head the “Weaponization Working Group,” President Trump is effectively creating an internal DOJ task force to audit, expose, and possibly prosecute the prosecutors— i.e., the very same agencies and officials who went after him and his allies during Biden’s term.
The odds are good that Martin will be given real investigative power. The “Weaponization Working Group” was established by Attorney General Bondi on her first day in office in February. Bondi’s task force was responding to Executive Order 14147, titled “Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” which directed agency heads to identify and take ‘appropriate action’ against past politically motivated misconduct by intelligence, justice, or regulatory agencies.
In turn, EO 14147 was signed by President Trump on his first day in office.
In other words, the Weaponization task force was one of both President Trump’s and AG Bondi’s first priorities. Before yesterday, it wasn’t clear whether they would follow through with anything substantive in terms of investigations and accountability. But, combined with bulldog Martin’s new assignments, it begins to look like they are loading the prosecutorial cannon, which should make the Establishment extremely nervous.
By blocking Martin from becoming U.S. Attorney for D.C., limp Senate Republicans and the Establishment may have thought they dodged a firebrand. Instead, their stubborness landed Ed an even more influential role with no confirmation, no term limit, and arguably more reach: heading a DOJ-wide internal investigations unit with a shovel for digging up deep-state skeletons.
They may soon wish they’d just confirmed Ed Martin as DC’s U.S. Attorney.
When will the left and RINOs understand that Trump has a real mandate from the voters and the will to accomplish what he set out to do?
Time to clean out the Rubbish(Liberal Democrats, CFR, UN Globalists)and the rest of the Hazerdous wastes
I hope you’re right! But I think you’re “whistling by the graveyard”>
this looks like a big win for “Bush Republicans” as Gaetz was 2 months ago..
GWb remain a leftist force to both fear and respect!
“Count to ten Donald…”
“…10!”