U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, who is now feuding with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum over his role in failed prosecutions for the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, previously touted Burgum as a “straight shooter” and endorsed him to become Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate in her prior role as a Fox News host.
Pirro said that Trump’s pick would come down to one of JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Burgum during a discussion of his vice presidential shortlist on the June 6, 2024, edition of Fox panel show The Five.
“Trump actually got more Hispanic votes in Florida than Rubio did,” she said. “And you know, JD Vance is good but I really think it's Burgum. I do.” Noting that she had “met him several times,” she claimed that “there's something about him that he just seems like a straight shooter.”
Two years later, Pirro, who was once described by her own executive producer as “nuts” and a “reckless maniac,” is no longer a Fox host — she’s a top federal prosecutor. And rather than a “straight shooter,” she now reportedly thinks Burgum is “an incompetent liar.”
Pirro slammed the Interior Department in her motion to dismiss charges on Friday against David Hearn — the only person to face a felony charge over damage to the Reflecting Pool — effectively blaming Burgum’s agency for both slow-walking the production of evidence showing the damage “was the result of flawed installation by the contractor … and the rush to complete the project” rather than of vandalism.
Since her decision undermined Trump’s previous claims that the damage had been the work of “Deranged Vandals,” the president publicly claimed Pirro was “100%” wrong, reiterated that it had been a “pure case of VANDALISM,” maligned her for having “choked,” and reportedly considered replacing her. Burgum, meanwhile, dismissed Pirro’s argument, saying on social media, “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool.”
The feud came to a head on Monday during what The New York Times described as an “Oval Office showdown” attended by Trump, Pirro, and Burgum.
“During the meeting on Monday, Ms. Pirro, her voice raised at times, directly confronted Mr. Burgum, accusing him of misleading the president,” the Times reported. “She made the case that Mr. Burgum had promoted a self-serving cover story to conceal his own missteps.”
Curiously, Pirro’s former colleagues at Fox seem to be avoiding taking sides in the fracas. The network’s coverage is noticeably muted, with her former “opinion side” stablemates in particular ignoring it (or in the case of Laura Ingraham, mentioning it in passing only to mock unnamed commentators for “obsessing about things like Trump’s Reflecting Pool drama”).
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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