{"id":161520,"date":"2026-08-26T11:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/26\/jeanine-pirro-joins-the-growing-list-of-trump-prosecutors-with-a-grievance-file\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T11:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:14:08","slug":"jeanine-pirro-joins-the-growing-list-of-trump-prosecutors-with-a-grievance-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/26\/jeanine-pirro-joins-the-growing-list-of-trump-prosecutors-with-a-grievance-file\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeanine Pirro Joins The Growing List Of Trump Prosecutors With A Grievance File"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Legal Accountability Center filed a bar complaint<\/a> on Tuesday against Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, along with two of her lieutenants, Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden. The alleged ethical breach is one we have all watched belly-flop in real time \u2014 the office\u2019s doomed campaign<\/a> to indict six Democratic lawmakers for appearing in a video that reminded active-duty service members they are legally obligated to disregard unlawful orders.<\/p>\n

That is not a spicy interpretation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Which is presumably why the DOJ could not name the statute<\/a> any of them had supposedly broken. The career prosecutors in Pirro\u2019s office also wanted no part of it, so she imported a ringer: Vandervelden, a retired Westchester hand she pulled out of a dance photography studio<\/a> to run the presentation. The grand jury declined the performance. That\u2019s right: when Pirro\u2019s office hauled Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four House Democrats before a grand jury\u2026 said grand jury did not bite, returning a no-bill. <\/p>\n

The complaint, lodged with the grievance committee in New York, where Pirro is licensed, argues that her directive to bring the case was \u201cunwarranted, frivolous, and would serve merely to harass or maliciously injure\u201d the lawmakers, and that as a government prosecutor she knew or should have known it had no basis. That tracks the rules of professional conduct governing frivolous filings and a prosecutor\u2019s special duty not to pursue charges she knows aren\u2019t backed by probable cause. As co-founder Michael Teter put it, prosecutors have \u201can obligation to exercise independent legal judgment rather than use the criminal justice system to carry out a president\u2019s political demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pirro\u2019s office is unmoved. A spokesperson insisted it\u2019s a grand jury\u2019s job, not a prosecutor\u2019s, to decide whether to indict, and that \u201cattempting to weaponize the disciplinary process against prosecutors for doing their jobs amounts to nothing more than a frivolous complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen, bar discipline<\/a> is pretty much the last accountability mechanism standing<\/a> for this administration\u2019s lawyers \u2014 expansive immunity forecloses most of the criminal consequence and pardons potentially mop up the rest, with qualified immunity burying the civil suits. The DOJ knows it, which is why Pam Bondi has spent months trying to pry state bars loose<\/a> from their jurisdiction over government lawyers and floating a federal rule<\/a> to do it by fiat. You don\u2019t spend that kind of effort neutering a regulator you think is toothless. And the last person to hold Pirro\u2019s job, Ed Martin, caught a complaint of his own<\/a> \u2014 the D.C. Bar\u2019s reward being an ex parte meltdown for the ages.<\/p>\n

Pirro, for her part, is already in a defensive crouch. She tapped out<\/a> of the felony prosecution of the Olympian accused of touching Trump\u2019s beloved Reflecting Pool, and the White House has been openly wondering aloud whether she\u2019s worth keeping. A grievance file is not what you want landing while the boss is already asking whether you choked.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Jeanine Pirro Brought In Dance Photographer To Prosecute Lawmakers And It Went Exactly As You\u2019d Expect<\/a>
Trump DOJ Can\u2019t Answer, \u2018What Law Did My Client Allegedly Break?\u2019<\/a>
New Ethics Complaint Reminds Florida Bar That Pam Bondi Isn\u2019t Attorney General Anymore<\/a>
Bondi Says She\u2019s The Bar Now<\/a>
How Much Misconduct Is Jeanine Pirro Willing To Do To Save Her Job?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Jeanine Pirro Joins The Growing List Of Trump Prosecutors With A Grievance File<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJeanine Pirro (Photo by Win McNamee\/Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Legal Accountability Center filed a bar complaint<\/a> on Tuesday against Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, along with two of her lieutenants, Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden. The alleged ethical breach is one we have all watched belly-flop in real time \u2014 the office\u2019s doomed campaign<\/a> to indict six Democratic lawmakers for appearing in a video that reminded active-duty service members they are legally obligated to disregard unlawful orders.<\/p>\n

That is not a spicy interpretation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Which is presumably why the DOJ could not name the statute<\/a> any of them had supposedly broken. The career prosecutors in Pirro\u2019s office also wanted no part of it, so she imported a ringer: Vandervelden, a retired Westchester hand she pulled out of a dance photography studio<\/a> to run the presentation. The grand jury declined the performance. That\u2019s right: when Pirro\u2019s office hauled Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four House Democrats before a grand jury\u2026 said grand jury did not bite, returning a no-bill. <\/p>\n

The complaint, lodged with the grievance committee in New York, where Pirro is licensed, argues that her directive to bring the case was \u201cunwarranted, frivolous, and would serve merely to harass or maliciously injure\u201d the lawmakers, and that as a government prosecutor she knew or should have known it had no basis. That tracks the rules of professional conduct governing frivolous filings and a prosecutor\u2019s special duty not to pursue charges she knows aren\u2019t backed by probable cause. As co-founder Michael Teter put it, prosecutors have \u201can obligation to exercise independent legal judgment rather than use the criminal justice system to carry out a president\u2019s political demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pirro\u2019s office is unmoved. A spokesperson insisted it\u2019s a grand jury\u2019s job, not a prosecutor\u2019s, to decide whether to indict, and that \u201cattempting to weaponize the disciplinary process against prosecutors for doing their jobs amounts to nothing more than a frivolous complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen, bar discipline<\/a> is pretty much the last accountability mechanism standing<\/a> for this administration\u2019s lawyers \u2014 expansive immunity forecloses most of the criminal consequence and pardons potentially mop up the rest, with qualified immunity burying the civil suits. The DOJ knows it, which is why Pam Bondi has spent months trying to pry state bars loose<\/a> from their jurisdiction over government lawyers and floating a federal rule<\/a> to do it by fiat. You don\u2019t spend that kind of effort neutering a regulator you think is toothless. And the last person to hold Pirro\u2019s job, Ed Martin, caught a complaint of his own<\/a> \u2014 the D.C. Bar\u2019s reward being an ex parte meltdown for the ages.<\/p>\n

Pirro, for her part, is already in a defensive crouch. She tapped out<\/a> of the felony prosecution of the Olympian accused of touching Trump\u2019s beloved Reflecting Pool, and the White House has been openly wondering aloud whether she\u2019s worth keeping. A grievance file is not what you want landing while the boss is already asking whether you choked.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Jeanine Pirro Brought In Dance Photographer To Prosecute Lawmakers And It Went Exactly As You\u2019d Expect<\/a>
Trump DOJ Can\u2019t Answer, \u2018What Law Did My Client Allegedly Break?\u2019<\/a>
New Ethics Complaint Reminds Florida Bar That Pam Bondi Isn\u2019t Attorney General Anymore<\/a>
Bondi Says She\u2019s The Bar Now<\/a>
How Much Misconduct Is Jeanine Pirro Willing To Do To Save Her Job?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Legal Accountability Center filed a bar complaint on Tuesday against Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, along with two of her lieutenants, Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden. The alleged ethical breach is one we have all watched belly-flop in real time \u2014 the office\u2019s doomed campaign to indict six Democratic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":161509,"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-161520","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\/08\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-RyDt6o.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161520","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=161520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}