Ranking Member Raskin Urges Majority Leader Thune and Minority Leader Schumer to Reject Radical MAGA Nominee Jeanine Pirro

Washington, D.C. (July 31, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer urging them to reject President Trump’s alarming nomination of Jeanine Pirro to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

“I write with grave concern about President Trump’s nomination of Jeanine Pirro to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Over the past decade, Ms. Pirro has consistently demonstrated that her loyalty lies with Donald Trump the person, not with the Constitution or the rule of law. Her blind loyalty to Trump, her embarrassing support for the ‘big lie’ that the 2020 election was rigged in the face of all evidence to the contrary and 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting such claims, her unswerving defense of convicted January 6th rioters, and her incendiary rhetoric urging President Trump to seek retribution against his alleged enemies all make clear that she lacks the intellectual honesty, personal temperament, integrity and fundamental constitutional fidelity required to lead this important office,” wrote Ranking Member Raskin.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Department of Justice (DOJ), playing a critical role in upholding the rule of law and keeping residents of D.C. safe. Not only is this office charged with prosecuting ordinary crimes in the District, but because it’s in the nation’s capital, this office also investigates and prosecutes matters involving Members of Congress and the Executive Branch. Jeanine Pirro is plainly unfit to serve in such a role, which requires independence and a commitment to upholding the Constitution.

Pirro has made it clear that her loyalty to Donald Trump overrides any other obligations, such as the Constitution. When she was a candidate for Deputy Attorney General during President Trump’s first term, she urged President Trump to go after his political opponents, including Hillary Clinton. She also told President Trump to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. An investigation by Trump’s DOJ on these issues yielded nothing and quietly ended after two years. Not only that, in December 2017, Pirro called for a “cleansing” of the FBI and the Justice Department, which she said were full “of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in handcuffs.” 

Pirro has also championed President Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 Election, promoting President Trump’s stolen-election conspiracy theories on air so vigorously and frequently that a Fox News producer even said that she should be kept off air for exposing Fox to litigation for her baseless conspiracy theories. This ultimately proved to be true, as Pirro was named in a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit, which was settled by Fox News for more than $787 million.  

Pirro has relentlessly defended President Trump’s sweeping pardon of January 6th rioters, even claiming they were “hostages” and were prosecuted by the DOJ “based upon their political beliefs.” In her Senate questionnaire, she claimed that she was “not aware” that January 6th rioters who committed violent assault on police officers were given full and unconditional pardons by President Trump. 

Pirro’s indiscriminate loyalty to President Trump was rewarded when President Trump pardoned her ex-husband Albert Pirro, who had been convicted of criminal tax evasion and conspiracy in 2000, during the last days of his first term. Trump is rewarding her yet again with a nomination to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

“Ms. Pirro’s appointment to lead the crucial D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office will further erode the Department’s credibility and do untold damage to the DOJ’s and the office’s ability to uphold the rule of law and carry out even a semblance of impartial justice. As Senators charged with the responsibility of evaluating and confirming President Trump’s nominee to United States Attorney’s Offices, surely you must reject this extreme and appalling nomination,” concluded Ranking Member Raskin.

Click here to read the letter.