The US Senate has confirmed Jeanine Pirro – a former Fox News host and staunch Donald Trump ally who boosted lies that he lost the 2020 presidential race because of electoral fraudsters – as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital.
Ms Pirro – a former New York state district attorney and county judge who joined Fox News in 2011 – was confirmed on Saturday in a 50-45 vote along party lines.
In a statement issued by Ms Pirro after the vote, the Republican said she was “blessed” to have been confirmed as the US attorney for Washington DC. “Get ready for a real crime fighter,” said Ms Pirro’s statement, which called the US attorney’s office she had been confirmed to lead the largest in the country.
Before her media career, Ms Pirro spent more than a decade as a Republican district attorney in Westchester county, New York, and also served as a county judge.
She hosted her own Fox show Justice with Judge Jeanine. More recently, she became a co-host on the Fox show The Five.
Ms Pirro used her time at Fox News in part to publicly support the baseless claims that Mr Trump lost his first presidency to Joe Biden in 2020 because of voter fraud. In 2021 she was among several Fox News hosts named in the defamation lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the network of knowingly airing false claims about the company’s voting machines after the previous year’s election.
Fox ultimately settled the lawsuit for $787.5 million and has acknowledged that the fraud claims were false.
Ms Pirro has been serving as the interim US attorney since May, when Mr Trump nominated her to the post months into his second presidency. She was nominated after Mr Trump withdrew the nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin, his first choice for the role. A key Republican senator, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, had said he would not support Mr Martin’s nomination.
In announcing Ms Pirro’s nomination in May, Mr Trump praised her record, and said she was a “powerful crusader for victims of crime” and someone who “excelled in all ways”.
“Jeanine is incredibly well qualified for this position,” the president said.
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Saturday published a statement exalting Ms Pirro as “a warrior for law and order”.
At the end of his first presidency, Mr Trump pardoned Ms Pirro’s former husband, Albert Pirro Jr, after he had been convicted in 2000 on federal charges of fraud and tax evasion.
Ms Pirro is one of a number of Trump loyalists with ties to Fox who have joined the president’s administration. Other prominent names include her fellow ex-Fox News host Pete Hegseth, the embattled defence secretary, and the former Fox Business personality Sean Duffy, the embattled transportation secretary.
In June US senator Adam Schiff said Ms Pirro’s “blind obedience to Donald Trump is nearly unrivalled among his ardent supporters”.
“For an important prosecutorial position like this one, the country has a right to demand a serious and principled public servant,” Mr Schiff said. “Jeanine Pirro is not it.”
Despite Ms Pirro’s confirmation, the US Senate left Washington DC on Saturday night for its month-long August recess without a deal to advance dozens of Trump nominees despite days of contentious, bipartisan negotiations.
An irate Mr Trump went on social media and told Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to “GO TO HELL!”
