Jeanine Pirro complained that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Washington D.C. is facing a major staffing shortage—but she left out that the administration purged the department when Donald Trump returned to office.
The top D.C. prosecutor returned to Fox News, where up until recently she was a host, and she was asked about staffing shortages.
“We’re down like two-thirds staff. What’s going on?” asked host Laura Ingraham.
“Yeah, I’m down 90 prosecutors, 60 investigators and paralegals,” Pirro said.
Asked why, Pirro claimed” “Because nobody cared.”
“I’m telling you right now. Nobody cared enough to make sure that office was running,” she claimed. “I’m going to have that office running.”
The former TV personality didn’t stop there. She used her TV appearance to beg people to join the team.
“If you want a job in the nation’s, in the premier office, the largest U.S. attorney’s office, contact me,” Pirro said directly to the camera.
But Pirro could find it challenging to find candidates with the right experience after the Trump administration fired a series of career prosecutors.
Over the past six months, there has been a slow drip of reports about purges at the U.S. attorney’s office.
At the end of January, more than a dozen federal prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington were fired, according to the New York Times. It included those hired to investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, who had been moved into different permanent roles after the president retook office.
By mid-February, the chief of the criminal division at the office abruptly quit.
In late February, the Washington Post reported that seven leaders at the U.S. attorney’s office in DC were demoted to misdemeanor or entry-level intake positions as the Trump administration continued to purge career prosecutors in a targeted retribution against those who handled politically sensitive cases, including investigating the president’s role in the January 6 insurrection.
In June, the Justice Department ousted another three prosecutors involved in the January 6 riot investigation.
The purge continued as recently as last month when the department fired additional lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump, although the total number in the latest round was not clear, according to the AP.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for DC for comment.
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