U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro offered prosecutors $25,000 to stay as President Donald Trump raged at her over a string of collapsed cases, a new report shows.
Pirro last month offered the retention bonuses to prosecutors willing to commit to two more years, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.
“With a weighty portfolio of cases, Pirro has been working to stabilize her Washington office, which has been depleted by resignations and dismissals since Trump returned to the White House,” the Journal reported. “Last month, Pirro offered prosecutors in her office a $25,000 retention bonus to stay for the next two years, according to people familiar with the matter.
Her office has been depleted by resignations and dismissals since Trump returned to power, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Trump has been “furious” with Pirro, a source told CNN — and a phone call between the two that weekend “wasn’t pretty.”
“She folded like an umbrella,” Trump told reporters at the White House Monday.
Upon returning to office, his Justice Department fired experienced prosecutors who had worked Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases, stripping the office of its most seasoned lawyers, according to the CNN report.
Pirro’s office struck out before a grand jury seeking charges against six Democratic lawmakers — one of several cases built around Trump’s political enemies that all collapsed, Politico reported.
As Politico pointed out, a probe targeting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was abandoned after a federal judge ruled the subpoenas were a pretext to pressure him on interest rates.
Grand juries were said to have rejected cases tied to anti-immigration enforcement protests and a man accused of throwing a sandwich at National Guard troops.
“There has been a significant strain on both the manpower and the morale of the criminal division…” said Kevin Owen, an attorney who represents several fired DC prosecutors. “These cases are being brought and they’re falling apart.”
Career prosecutors, according to the Wall Street Journal, had privately raised concerns about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool case from the start.
When the Interior Department finally handed over documents showing the pool’s liner had been damaged by a ‘botched installation’ — not vandals — Pirro’s office dropped the case.
“The president did not know beforehand that she was going to do that,” a senior administration official told CNN.
Pirro raced to the White House with a box of evidence to defend herself, CBS News reported, blaming Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for withholding critical information.
Trump did not fire her — but people close to the president said it was too early to say whether her job was safe, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In the meeting, Pirro told Trump it was “the career officials in her office that were responsible for the filing,” sources told CNN.
Those are the same prosecutors she is now paying $25,000 to keep.
Michael Bromwich, an attorney for David Hearn — the former Olympic canoeist whose felony charge Pirro dropped — said “nothing is off the table,” including bar complaints and lawsuits against the prosecutors involved, CNN reported.
“This was just another example of Trump’s Justice Department trying to please him and back up his fantasies through the misuse of the criminal justice system,” said Randall Eliason, a former prosecutor in Pirro’s office, according to Politico.
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