Judge Jean overwhelmed as DC Prosecutor

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Plucked straight from Fox News, the face of President Donald Trump’s new law-and-order regime in the nation’s capital has run headlong into a series of high-profile court losses, making it clear that the federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington, D.C., is little more than theater with essentially no legal foundation. Jeanine Pirro was parachuted into one of the nation’s most consequential prosecutorial roles because of her loyalty, media savvy and ratings, but as D.C.’s U.S. attorney, she is overcommitting and underdelivering.


Trump declared a crime emergency in D.C. on Aug. 11, deploying hundreds of federal agents and National Guard members to police the streets of the capital. More than 1,000 arrests have been made in the first two weeks. The resulting cascade on the court system has been compounded by Pirro’s push for prosecutors to bring the harshest charges allowable, even for minor infractions. Now, her aggressive posture is colliding with real-world constraints, exposing both her limitations and the fragility of politicized law enforcement.

“Prosecutor Jeanine Pirro’s office has now whiffed on three cases alleging defendants assaulted federal agents during Trump’s police takeover,” HuffPost reported on Aug. 29. The New York Times observed that “one of her biggest challenges is matching her confident public messaging with results, given the mass departures of career prosecutors and support staff.”

Pirro recently revealed that she is getting help from military lawyers, because her office is short 90 prosecutors, as well as 60 investigators and paralegals. D.C. federal courts, used to processing an average of six new cases per week, now face six or more cases per day, many stemming from low-level offenses that previously would’ve been diverted or even dismissed. At the height of this recent backlog, over 125 criminal defendants appeared in a single day, forcing judges to speed through hearings and delay fair trials until as far out as 2027, according to the Associated Press. Defense attorneys are crying foul and civil rights groups are suing. It’s clear that Pirro’s directives are unsustainable.