{"id":146181,"date":"2026-03-16T15:44:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/16\/jeanine-pirro-crashes-out\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T15:44:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T23:44:40","slug":"jeanine-pirro-crashes-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/03\/16\/jeanine-pirro-crashes-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeanine Pirro Crashes Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, Jeanine Pirro, the improbable US Attorney for DC, lost her shit on live television.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

this is beyond parody, folks. a complete mockery of the DOJ.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-03-13T19:46:02.084Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Independence? Schmindependence!<\/h2>\n

Trump has brayed for Chairman Powell\u2019s head for over to a year now. He wants interest rates at zero and seems to think it\u2019s his rightful due for \u201csaving\u201d the economy. This is economically illiterate \u2014 zero interest rates are a tool to stimulate an economy that is contracting \u2014 although his Iran misadventures may wind up changing the math.<\/p>\n

At any rate, Trump seems to have grasped that trying to fire Powell would be more trouble than it\u2019s worth, both politically and legally. But that hasn\u2019t stopped Trump\u2019s minions from targeting Powell<\/a> in an effort to gin up justification to terminate the chair \u201cfor cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s chief instigator is Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who spends his days spelunking through confidential financial documents looking for dirt on Trump\u2019s enemies. He\u2019s the one who came up with the allegation that Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook had lied on a mortgage application, justifying her termination \u201cfor cause\u201d and freeing up Trump to install someone more pliant. With Powell, Pulte seems to have settled on cost overruns in the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings as a convenient excuse.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

It looks like I will be able to tour the Fed\u2019s $2.5 Billion Building Renovation, which is good, because I believe it\u2019s riddled with Fraud and likely explains the gross negligence that Jerome Powell has exhibited in his \u2018hallucinations\u2019 that tarriffs cause inflation (they don\u2019t).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Pulte (@pulte) July 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Pulte\u2019s tweet soon became the official Trumpland line, and White House officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, posted memes of Powell as Marie Antoinette \u2014 which does double-duty as homophobia, too.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Jerome Antoinette. https:\/\/t.co\/Ufb3KFa97q<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/xxrdNoTNzw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 James Blair (@JamesBlairUSA) July 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In DC, Pirro answered Pulte\u2019s call. She served grand jury subpoenas on the Fed in January demanding information about the renovation and Powell\u2019s testimony to Congress. Powell immediately took to the airwaves to denounce this blatant attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

He also moved to quash the subpoenas in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

The case landed on the docket of Chief Justice James Boasberg, himself the target of a judicial ethics complaint, an impeachment push, and an unending stream of vitriol from the Trump administration. Last Wednesday, Judge Boasberg granted<\/a> Powell\u2019s motions to quash, unsealing much of it on the public docket Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo late?\u201d Or right on time?<\/h2>\n

Judge Boasberg began his order by quoting a few of Trump\u2019s dozens of attacks on Powell.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBeing perceived as the President\u2019s adversary has become risky in recent years,\u201d he observed wryly. \u201cIn his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department\u2019s prosecutors have listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge noted that, after Trump called to prosecute members of Congress for reminding active duty service members of their duty to refuse unlawful orders, Pirro\u2019s office tried to indict them. He omitted to mention that zero<\/em> grand jurors<\/a> voted to charge the legislators.<\/p>\n

Judge Boasberg says that he invited the US Attorney\u2019s Office to submit evidence ex parte<\/em> that there is any reason at all to suspect that Powell committed a crime. The government declined, other than to gesture vaguely toward cost overruns in the Fed renovation and the fact that Powell\u2019s testified before the Senate Banking Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter,\u201d he judge scoffed.<\/p>\n

And so, the subpoenas were quashed.<\/p>\n

Take the L, Ma\u2019am<\/h2>\n

This would be an ideal opportunity for the Trump administration to declare victory and go home.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s term as Fed Chair is up in May, although his tenure on the Board of Governors extends through 2027. It\u2019s traditional for the Fed Chair to resign at the end of his term, leaving space for the president to leave his stamp on the Board with his own nominee. But Powell has refused to say whether he\u2019ll depart, and the DOJ claims in its opposition<\/a> that Powell refused to resign while this investigation was pending.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy making this peculiar suggestion, the Board morphed the Subpoenas into the exact thing about which they complain \u2014 a mechanism by which Chair Powell could be removed,\u201d the prosecutors whined. I believe this is meant to suggest that, by offering to leave if the case goes away, Powell himself is politicizing the prosecution. But if Pirro\u2019s office could simply STFU up for 10 minutes, she could solve a bunch of the president\u2019s political issues.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, was so incensed by Pirro\u2019s attack on Powell that he vowed to block<\/a> any confirmation to the Fed until it resolves. That includes Kevin Warsh, Trump\u2019s pick to replace Powell as chair. On Friday, Senator Tillis encouraged the Trump administration to just take the off-ramp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence,\u201d Sen. Tillis said<\/a>. \u201cWe all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on. Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jeanine Pirro didn\u2019t get where she is in this life by making rational choices. After foamily fulminating about her own track record prosecuting child sex crimes, she promised to appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy inserting himself and preventing the grand jury from even obtaining, let alone hearing evidence, he has neutered the ability of the grand jury to investigate crime,\u201d she ranted. \u201cAs a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong, and it is without legal authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

These two things are the same<\/h2>\n

Pirro\u2019s hissy fit comes on the heels of the revelation<\/a> that her predecessor is under investigation by the DC bar. Ed Martin publicly harassed the Georgetown University Law Center for its First Amendment protected speech, and then, when called out for it, privately spammed the District of Columbia Court of Appeals with ex parte<\/em> communications demanding that the judges rein in the DC Bar.<\/p>\n

Martin enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the only Trump nominees rejected by the Senate. This, too, was thanks to Tillis, who said he wasn\u2019t going to put a January 6 protester in charge of the US Attorneys Office in DC. Martin was then folded into the Justice Department and given several titles to soothe his wounded ego. Eventually, he appears to have worn out his welcome and gotten turfed out<\/a> after sharing confidential grand jury materials with some rando on Twitter. But it\u2019s worth asking what would be different at the US Attorneys Office in DC if Tillis had knuckled under and voted for Martin.<\/p>\n

Because, for all Pirro\u2019s histrionics about having \u201ccleaned up this city,\u201d violent crime in DC has declined at roughly the same rate as every other major city, including neighboring Baltimore. Despite having an actual resume as a prosecutor, Pirro\u2019s tenure has been marked by an embarrassing string of defeats<\/a>. She routinely gets no-billed by grand juries and laughed out of court<\/a> by petit jurors. Her political prosecutions have come to naught. And on Friday, even as she was inveighing against Judge Boasberg, her office was abandoning<\/a> the prosecution of veteran Jay Carey for burning a flag in Lafayette Park to protest Trump\u2019s executive order purporting to ban it. That case was also presided over by Judge Boasberg, who refused<\/a> to dismiss Carey\u2019s case on statutory grounds, but did grant him discovery on the question of vindictive prosecution. Rather than explain herself, Pirro dropped the case.<\/p>\n

Ed Martin couldn\u2019t have done better! But then again, he probably couldn\u2019t have done worse, either.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The post Jeanine Pirro Crashes Out<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Jeanine Pirro, the improbable US Attorney for DC, lost her shit on live television.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

this is beyond parody, folks. a complete mockery of the DOJ.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-03-13T19:46:02.084Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Independence? Schmindependence!<\/h2>\n

Trump has brayed for Chairman Powell\u2019s head for over to a year now. He wants interest rates at zero and seems to think it\u2019s his rightful due for \u201csaving\u201d the economy. This is economically illiterate \u2014 zero interest rates are a tool to stimulate an economy that is contracting \u2014 although his Iran misadventures may wind up changing the math.<\/p>\n

At any rate, Trump seems to have grasped that trying to fire Powell would be more trouble than it\u2019s worth, both politically and legally. But that hasn\u2019t stopped Trump\u2019s minions from targeting Powell<\/a> in an effort to gin up justification to terminate the chair \u201cfor cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s chief instigator is Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who spends his days spelunking through confidential financial documents looking for dirt on Trump\u2019s enemies. He\u2019s the one who came up with the allegation that Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook had lied on a mortgage application, justifying her termination \u201cfor cause\u201d and freeing up Trump to install someone more pliant. With Powell, Pulte seems to have settled on cost overruns in the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings as a convenient excuse.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

It looks like I will be able to tour the Fed\u2019s $2.5 Billion Building Renovation, which is good, because I believe it\u2019s riddled with Fraud and likely explains the gross negligence that Jerome Powell has exhibited in his \u2018hallucinations\u2019 that tarriffs cause inflation (they don\u2019t).<\/p>\n

\u2014 Pulte (@pulte) July 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Pulte\u2019s tweet soon became the official Trumpland line, and White House officials, including Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, posted memes of Powell as Marie Antoinette \u2014 which does double-duty as homophobia, too.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Jerome Antoinette. https:\/\/t.co\/Ufb3KFa97q<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/xxrdNoTNzw<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 James Blair (@JamesBlairUSA) July 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In DC, Pirro answered Pulte\u2019s call. She served grand jury subpoenas on the Fed in January demanding information about the renovation and Powell\u2019s testimony to Congress. Powell immediately took to the airwaves to denounce this blatant attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

He also moved to quash the subpoenas in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n

The case landed on the docket of Chief Justice James Boasberg, himself the target of a judicial ethics complaint, an impeachment push, and an unending stream of vitriol from the Trump administration. Last Wednesday, Judge Boasberg granted<\/a> Powell\u2019s motions to quash, unsealing much of it on the public docket Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo late?\u201d Or right on time?<\/h2>\n

Judge Boasberg began his order by quoting a few of Trump\u2019s dozens of attacks on Powell.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBeing perceived as the President\u2019s adversary has become risky in recent years,\u201d he observed wryly. \u201cIn his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department\u2019s prosecutors have listened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge noted that, after Trump called to prosecute members of Congress for reminding active duty service members of their duty to refuse unlawful orders, Pirro\u2019s office tried to indict them. He omitted to mention that zero<\/em> grand jurors<\/a> voted to charge the legislators.<\/p>\n

Judge Boasberg says that he invited the US Attorney\u2019s Office to submit evidence ex parte<\/em> that there is any reason at all to suspect that Powell committed a crime. The government declined, other than to gesture vaguely toward cost overruns in the Fed renovation and the fact that Powell\u2019s testified before the Senate Banking Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter,\u201d he judge scoffed.<\/p>\n

And so, the subpoenas were quashed.<\/p>\n

Take the L, Ma\u2019am<\/h2>\n

This would be an ideal opportunity for the Trump administration to declare victory and go home.<\/p>\n

Powell\u2019s term as Fed Chair is up in May, although his tenure on the Board of Governors extends through 2027. It\u2019s traditional for the Fed Chair to resign at the end of his term, leaving space for the president to leave his stamp on the Board with his own nominee. But Powell has refused to say whether he\u2019ll depart, and the DOJ claims in its opposition<\/a> that Powell refused to resign while this investigation was pending.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy making this peculiar suggestion, the Board morphed the Subpoenas into the exact thing about which they complain \u2014 a mechanism by which Chair Powell could be removed,\u201d the prosecutors whined. I believe this is meant to suggest that, by offering to leave if the case goes away, Powell himself is politicizing the prosecution. But if Pirro\u2019s office could simply STFU up for 10 minutes, she could solve a bunch of the president\u2019s political issues.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, was so incensed by Pirro\u2019s attack on Powell that he vowed to block<\/a> any confirmation to the Fed until it resolves. That includes Kevin Warsh, Trump\u2019s pick to replace Powell as chair. On Friday, Senator Tillis encouraged the Trump administration to just take the off-ramp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence,\u201d Sen. Tillis said<\/a>. \u201cWe all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on. Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Jeanine Pirro didn\u2019t get where she is in this life by making rational choices. After foamily fulminating about her own track record prosecuting child sex crimes, she promised to appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy inserting himself and preventing the grand jury from even obtaining, let alone hearing evidence, he has neutered the ability of the grand jury to investigate crime,\u201d she ranted. \u201cAs a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong, and it is without legal authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

These two things are the same<\/h2>\n

Pirro\u2019s hissy fit comes on the heels of the revelation<\/a> that her predecessor is under investigation by the DC bar. Ed Martin publicly harassed the Georgetown University Law Center for its First Amendment protected speech, and then, when called out for it, privately spammed the District of Columbia Court of Appeals with ex parte<\/em> communications demanding that the judges rein in the DC Bar.<\/p>\n

Martin enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the only Trump nominees rejected by the Senate. This, too, was thanks to Tillis, who said he wasn\u2019t going to put a January 6 protester in charge of the US Attorneys Office in DC. Martin was then folded into the Justice Department and given several titles to soothe his wounded ego. Eventually, he appears to have worn out his welcome and gotten turfed out<\/a> after sharing confidential grand jury materials with some rando on Twitter. But it\u2019s worth asking what would be different at the US Attorneys Office in DC if Tillis had knuckled under and voted for Martin.<\/p>\n

Because, for all Pirro\u2019s histrionics about having \u201ccleaned up this city,\u201d violent crime in DC has declined at roughly the same rate as every other major city, including neighboring Baltimore. Despite having an actual resume as a prosecutor, Pirro\u2019s tenure has been marked by an embarrassing string of defeats<\/a>. She routinely gets no-billed by grand juries and laughed out of court<\/a> by petit jurors. Her political prosecutions have come to naught. And on Friday, even as she was inveighing against Judge Boasberg, her office was abandoning<\/a> the prosecution of veteran Jay Carey for burning a flag in Lafayette Park to protest Trump\u2019s executive order purporting to ban it. That case was also presided over by Judge Boasberg, who refused<\/a> to dismiss Carey\u2019s case on statutory grounds, but did grant him discovery on the question of vindictive prosecution. Rather than explain herself, Pirro dropped the case.<\/p>\n

Ed Martin couldn\u2019t have done better! But then again, he probably couldn\u2019t have done worse, either.<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The post Jeanine Pirro Crashes Out<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, Jeanine Pirro, the improbable US Attorney for DC, lost her shit on live television. this is beyond parody, folks. a complete mockery of the DOJ. \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-13T19:46:02.084Z Independence? Schmindependence! Trump has brayed for Chairman Powell\u2019s head for over to a year now. He wants interest rates at zero and seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/law-and-chaos-logo-liz-dye-300x153-p6uCyF.jpg?fit=300%2C153&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}