It’s unfair to argue whether the now-withdrawn nominee, Ed Martin as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, is worse than the new nominee, former Westchester, NY, County Court judge and District Attorney, Jeanine Pirro. As discussed here, Martin is incompetent, by experience, intellect and temperament, to be US Attorney, whether in DC or elsewhere. In contrast, Pirro is batshit crazy atop incompetent, and thus reflects the nadir of prosecutorial choices. But that’s just me.
He does love them some Fox TV personalities, and Pirro is, if nothing else, a Fox TV personality.
Ms. Pirro has several attributes that have endeared her to Mr. Trump: She is on his television every day, defending him with husky-voiced vehemence as a member of “The Five” talk show on Fox; she incurred personal risk to trumpet his election lies; and she is apparently willing to ditch a lucrative TV career, on short notice, to bail him out of an embarrassing jam.
To be fair, money wasn’t Pirro’s issue given her ex-husband, convicted tax evader Albert. Pirro was well set, but kept herself busy pretending to be a judge on TV, before joining The View’s MAGA counterpart, The Five.
But Jeanine Pirro for DC, a jurisdiction where she’s neither resided nor been admitted to practice? Could Trump even lawfully appoint Pirro as interim US Attorney?
But the move runs the risk that criminal defendants indicted in Washington after May 20, when Mr. Martin’s 120-day appointment expires, could challenge their prosecution on the grounds that Ms. Pirro had not been lawfully appointed. In a similar situation, a court struck down certain actions that the Department of Homeland Security took in Mr. Trump’s first term, ruling that he had unlawfully appointed Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The administration has not publicly explained how it believes Mr. Trump has the lawful authority to appoint Ms. Pirro. But the most obvious theory, legal experts said, is that because Mr. Martin would leave just before reaching 120 days, his term technically never would have expired and so Mr. Trump could start over.
Regardless, Pirro was a self-promoting legal dufus as Westchester County Attorney, and has only gotten worse during her two decades as a right-wing loudmouth Trump apologist. As I’m wont to say, the alternative to bad isn’t necessarily good. It can always get worse. Ed Martin was bad. Jeanine Pirro is worse. That’s been my position for a long time, and I’m sticking with it.