President Donald Trump announced Thursday night that he is appointing Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., calling her "incredibly well qualified for this position" and "in a class by herself."
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social, mentioning Pirro's previous roles as a prosecutor and a judge, and said she was "currently Co-Host of The Five, one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television."
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WATCH HERENBC News reported Thursday that Trump was strongly considering Pirro for the position. Trump announced earlier in the day that he was withdrawing the nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin to stay on as the top federal prosecutor in Washington on a permanent basis.
ABC News first reported Trump was considering Pirro to take over the job on an interim basis. Martin's role as acting U.S. attorney is set to end May 20.
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In a statement after Trump's announcement, a Fox News spokesperson said Pirro "has been a wonderful addition to The Five over the last three years and a longtime beloved host across FOX News Media who contributed greatly to our success throughout her 14-year tenure. We wish her all the best in her new role in Washington."
Pirro pushed conspiracy theories about voting in the aftermath of Trump's 2020 election loss, and she came up in litigation filed by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox News tried to redact what one of Pirro's executive producers thought about one of her post-2020 election monologues, with the producer writing, “This is completely crazy.”
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Fox News and Dominion reached a $787.5 million settlement in the defamation lawsuit in 2023.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said this week that he could not support Martin, a “stop the steal” organizer, for the position, citing concerns over his associations with Jan. 6 rioters.
Trump lauded Martin in a Truth Social post Thursday night and said he will be moving to the Justice Department to serve as the new director of the "Weaponization Working Group," as well as associate deputy attorney general and pardon attorney.
Trump added that Martin will investigate what he called "the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime."
Pirro has not been as closely aligned with Capitol attack defendants as Martin, but she fed some of the conspiracy theories that precipitated the 2021 riot.
Three days before the attack, Pirro on the air compared disruption of Congress' planned certification of the 2020 election results to soldiers who fought in the American Revolutionary War.
"These hungry, tired, cold, defeated soldiers knew that it was their moment to stand up and fight for freedom. To many, Jan. 6 is such a moment," she said. "As we are all being told to shut up and move on, Jan. 6 will tell us whether there are any in Congress willing to battle for the America that those soldiers fought for, the one that you and I believe in."
Three days after the attack, Pirro condemned the events, saying they were "deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal," and she said members of the movement should stop looking for others to blame.
"Take the veil of politics off. Be totally objective. Anyone watching this must condemn it," she said.
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