CNN
—
The US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, is hoping for a new era of relative calm as the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital switches from one outspoken, controversial ally of the president to another.
Former Fox News host and newly tapped interim US Attorney Jeanine Pirro took her oath of office on Wednesday and now leads one of the most powerful federal prosecution offices in the country.
Pirro takes on a position that is under the microscope of Democrats, Republicans, and the Trump administration after Ed Martin, her predecessor, had his nomination withdrawn as it faltered on Capitol Hill over his praise of an alleged Nazi sympathizer, his refusal to say there was violence at the US Capitol riot and his comments denigrating police officers who defended the building that day.
Employees at the US attorney’s office are hoping that, despite her public persona as a bellicose cable news host, Pirro will bring a more stable leadership presence to the position responsible for running federal criminal investigations in DC.
Some DC prosecutors told CNN that under Martin, managing the public comments by the interim US attorney with continuing their work without interruption felt impossible. Some joked that they hope Pirro will focus on TV appearances to allow prosecutors to litigate cases without distractions.
“Hopefully Thursday will be better than the past four months,” one official inside the office quipped of Pirro’s first full day in the job.
But it’s not yet clear how Pirro, a former judge and district attorney for Westchester County in New York, will handle the new role. She has not held a position in the justice system since 2005, when she left the district attorney’s office and began her career on television, and, as a longtime friend and staunch supporter of Trump, some prosecutors fear that she will continue in Martin’s footsteps.
“We’re swapping a man for a woman, nothing more,” one person said. “The rest is the same.”
Martin to remain in the public eye
While Republican opposition to his nomination may have doomed his prospects of running the DC US attorney’s office, Martin is staying in a leadership role at DOJ and his attention-grabbing approach to justice will stay in the limelight.
Martin, whose highly public and abrasive strategy drew national criticisms but endeared the president to him, plans to continue his path of aggressively exacting revenge on behalf of the Trump administration in his new role at the DOJ atop the Weaponization Working Group.
In a news conference marking his final appearance at the US attorney’s office on Tuesday, Martin said that the group, which was established on Bondi’s first day to review law enforcement actions enacted under the Biden administration for any examples of “politicized justice,” would be taking a more public-facing approach.
Martin said that the “starting point” for their work would include probes into the work of special counsel Jack Smith and New York Attorney General Letitia James, how the sweeping January 6-related prosecutions unfolded, and whether the Biden administration was “targeting Catholics.”
And even if he can’t find legal backing to bring charges, Martin said, he hopes to publicly call them out.
“There are some really bad actors, some people that did some really bad things to the American people, and if they can be charged, we’ll charge them,” Martin said.
But if they can’t be charged, “we will name them… there should be people that are shamed. And that’s a fact, that’s the way things work,” Martin continued, suggesting that is how he sees his role leading the weaponization group.
Martin’s comments have caught the attention of lawyers representing former special counsel prosecutor Jay Bratt and helped underscore why he opted to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights when answering questions from the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
CNN’s Paula Reid contributed to this report.
