President Trump on Thursday named the Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro, whose false statements about the 2020 election were part of lawsuit against the network, as the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, hours after he was forced to pull his first choice.
Selecting Ms. Pirro, the former Republican district attorney of Westchester County, N.Y., resolves a thorny dilemma for the president who said on Thursday that he would withdraw his nomination to permanently install the interim U.S. attorney, Ed Martin, under pressure from Senate Republicans.
Ms. Pirro, 73, has known the president for decades, has earned his trust and would provide him with a reliable line into one of the country’s most important federal prosecutors offices in the Justice Department.
Ms. Pirro has not held a law enforcement job in two decades since stepping down as a district attorney to pursue failed bids for higher office, including an ill-fated run against Hillary Clinton for U.S. Senate before the 2006 election.
Ms. Pirro has several attributes that have endeared her to Mr. Trump: She is on his television every day, defending him with husky-voiced vehemence as a member of “The Five” talk show on Fox; she incurred personal risk to trumpet his election lies; and she is apparently willing to ditch a lucrative TV career, on short notice, to bail him out of an embarrassing jam.
Mr. Trump needed to act fast. Mr. Martin’s 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expires on May 20, and if the president did not name a successor, the job would be filled by the judges who sit on the Federal District Court in Washington.
They are led by one of Mr. Trump’s judicial adversaries: James E. Boasberg, the court’s chief judge, who has ruled against the administration in several high-profile cases.
Ms. Pirro has far greater name recognition than Mr. Martin, a relatively obscure right-wing activist from Missouri, thanks to stints as her reality TV counterpart “Judge Jeanine” on the CW network and Fox.
But she shares a similar penchant for partisan combat.
Like Mr. Martin, she supports Mr. Trump’s efforts to exact vengeance on his political enemies, has backed his challenges to federal judges who have questioned the legality of his immigration policies and spent months protesting the legitimacy of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election in 2020.
Mr. Pirro was among the Fox hosts named in a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for questioning the validity of ballot tabulations on Fox’s broadcasts. Fox settled the case and was forced to acknowledge that statements by Ms. Pirro and others were false.
She has been a staunch defender of Mr. Trump, offering him her support when he needed it most, particularly in the days leading up to the 2016 election when an outtake from “Access Hollywood” threatened to overwhelm his campaign.
He has also proved to be a reliable ally to her family. In 2021, during the final hours of his first term, Mr. Trump pardoned Ms. Pirro’s former husband — and Mr. Trump’s onetime lawyer — Albert J. Pirro Jr., who was convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion charges in 2000.
Ms. Pirro, a native of Elmira, N.Y., attended Albany Law School and earned a reputation as an aggressive, self-promotional prosecutor who focused on domestic violence cases.
Her name has appeared on short lists for a variety of appointments in the Trump administration over the years, including attorney general and the Supreme Court.
ABC News earlier reported that Ms. Pirro was under consideration as the U.S. attorney in Washington.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
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