Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox co-host who took over the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia three months ago, has had a little trouble downshifting her high-rev New York motor to the flat-tire pace of bureaucratic Washington — as anybody within earshot knows.
Ms. Pirro, a cable TV celebrity who has not run a prosecutor’s office in the iPhone era, has vented her impatience over matters trivial and consequential, be it her difficulty getting free water for her office or grousing about federal and local laws limiting prosecution of young offenders, a consistent complaint of federal law enforcement for years.
Like many big-shot outsiders who take on medium-shot government jobs, Ms. Pirro has been aggravated by red tape, particularly requirements that she obtain approval of other officials before taking actions she would have done unilaterally as Westchester County district attorney two decades ago.
“I’ll call Bondi!” Ms. Pirro has told staff members when she is frustrated, according to people familiar with her remarks, referring to her friend and boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“I’ll call the president!” is what she says when she is really, really frustrated.
Ms. Pirro, 74, a longtime friend of President Trump who tried and failed to secure a top Justice Department job during his first term, has embraced her new post with a gravelly gusto and a focus on street crime. For now, she has set aside the partisan bomb throwing that endeared her to the president in the first place, including anti-Muslim slurs and election lies.
The tonal change is jarring. Few pro-Trump news personalities have talked more loudly or carried a bigger shtick than Ms. Pirro, whose in-your-face presence earned her a right-wing following and a leather-lunged, Merlot-sloshing caricature on “Saturday Night Live.” Among her more memorable statements: suggesting Hillary Clinton had “a lobotomy,” declaring that Biden-era Justice Department officials be “taken out in handcuffs,” and asserting that voting machines were rigged to sink Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign.
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The post Fox News Warrior Takes on Prosecutor Role in Trump’s D.C. Crackdown appeared first on New York Times.
