ICYMI: DC Prosecutor’s Office Serves Trump’s Political Retribution Agenda – Not the People

Reporting from the New York Times over the weekend details disturbing, unethical, and dangerous actions coming out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia that prioritize the president’s retribution campaign over the public good. Following the lead of other Trump-installed federal prosecutors, the Times article reveals how Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in DC, is weaponizing the office for the president’s political gain:

“Ms. Pirro, a longtime Trump supporter, has begun to quietly accelerate a list of what are known in the office as special projects touching on subjects that have piqued the president.

“Current and former prosecutors in Washington said that Ms. Pirro had put pressure on her staff to bring similar cases, creating a group to work on the so-called special projects. Those, they said, include investigations into the Metropolitan Police Department’s use of crime statistics and into the financier George Soros, who has long been a boogeyman on the right for his support of liberal causes.” 

Rather than fulfilling its mandate to prosecute crime, the office is undoing any of its previous work that involved the president or his allies. In some instances, the office is even going after its own prosecutors who worked on these cases:

“Just last week, two prosecutors were placed on leave hours after seeking a stiff sentence for a pro-Trump rioter who was pardoned for his role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021… Mr. Hornok personally filed new sentencing papers scrubbed of any mention of Jan. 6 or Mr. Trump.”

“There was also interest in re-investigating aspects of the Jan. 6 riot and in scrutinizing the lawyer Norm Eisen, who has repeatedly challenged Mr. Trump’s efforts to expand his powers.” 

The office is in crisis as more career prosecutors are leaving under increasing pressure to bend the law to fit the president’s personal motives: 

“The departures have fallen particularly hard on the office’s fraud, public corruption and civil rights unit, which has lost nearly half of its prosecutors as well as Mr. Hooks, its former chief, and three of its former supervisors…Mr. Hooks was uncomfortable with moving forward on some of the cases and told Ms. Pirro weeks ago that he planned to resign. Before he could quit, however, he was fired — at the going-away party for his colleagues.”

You can read the full article HERE.