Donald Trump is not an attorney, he did not go to law school, and he has no meaningful background in the law. In fact, the Republican’s only real experience with the justice system is facing dozens of felony counts across multiple jurisdictions and becoming the only convicted felon to be elected to the American presidency.
Nevertheless, one of the hallmarks of Trump’s second term is his belief that the Justice Department belongs to him and exists as an extension of his political agenda. As The New York Times explained in a newly published analysis, “From the moment President Trump was re-elected, he has muscled his way into the driver’s seat at the Justice Department, leaving tread marks on its time-honored independence from the White House by demanding, and sometimes directing, investigations into his enemies.”
To that end, the president decided months ago that nefarious scoundrels secretly attacked the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — and he directed everyone on Team Trump to play along, as if the vandals were real.
For a while, Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host whom Trump tapped to serve as the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., read from the partisan script and even charged former Olympian David Hearn with one felony count of destruction of property.
But as the prosecution moved forward, Pirro came to realize that she couldn’t get away with bringing a baseless criminal case to a federal courtroom, so she abandoned it late last week.
It’s an open question as to whether the prosecutor needs to worry about drawing the ire of the federal judge overseeing the case, but in the short term, Pirro has already drawn the ire of the president to whom she’s shown unflinching loyalty for years.
The day after the case against Hearn collapsed, Trump used his social media platform to express his dissatisfaction with Pirro’s decision, writing (among other things), “I don’t know what she was thinking?”
At an unrelated event in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon, the president went much further.
“I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro, really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro,” he told reporters. “She folded like an umbrella, and people get away with things and it’s a disgrace.”
He went on to say, “Frankly, I think she choked.”
When MS NOW’s Jake Traylor asked about Pirro’s future, the president snapped, “Don’t ever talk to me again” — but the underlying question remains relevant. The U.S. attorney was summoned to the White House for a meeting with Trump on Monday afternoon, and multiple news organizations reported that the prosecutor’s job is not secure.
The message to Pirro is hardly subtle: The president doesn’t care whether criminal cases have merit, he only cares about pursuing his perceived enemies and advancing his political agenda. Trump seems to want her to think less like a U.S. attorney concerned with jurisprudential propriety and more like a partisan operative.
But there’s no reason to assume that Pirro is the only intended target of this display. The president also appears to be using this opportunity to remind the entirety of federal law enforcement about his perspective: This is his Justice Department. Prosecutors are expected to bring the cases Trump wants, against defendants Trump doesn’t like, in a manner consistent with Trump’s wishes.
The aggressive personnel purge within the DOJ has been ongoing for a year and a half, and if there’s one takeaway from the president’s anti-Pirro tantrum, it’s that prosecutors should know they very well could be next.
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