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The Senate on Saturday confirmed Jeanine Pirro, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as Washington D.C.’s top prosecutor, as lawmakers failed to reach a deal to ram through dozens of the president’s nominees.
The onetime New York judge and prosecutor and former Fox News host was one of the over 150 still outstanding nominees on the Senate’s calendar as Senate Republicans work to find a path forward to ram through Senate Democrats’ blockade of Trump’s nominees, and part of a slew of picks to get a vote over the weekend. But just ahead of her confirmation vote, the path to a deal was derailed, and lawmakers opted to ram through just seven of Trump’s nominees before heading home until September.
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Pirro, who was confirmed by a 50-45 vote, will serve as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a post she has held since May on an interim basis.
Pirro previously served as the District Attorney in Westchester County, New York, for over a decade. Prior to that, she was on the bench as a judge in Westchester County in the early 1990s.
“Jeanine is incredibly well-qualified for this position, and is considered one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York,” Trump said when he nominated Pirro. “She is in a class by herself.”
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She was not Trump’s first pick for the job, however. His first choice, Ed Martin, failed to gain enough support among Republicans earlier this year. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., effectively tanked Martin’s nomination over concerns about his views on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill.
And Pirro’s road to confirmation was not without its own hiccups and drama.
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Senate Democrats have accused her of amplifying Trump’s 2020 election fraud claims and defending him after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot during her time as a Fox News host, and warned that she would do the president’s bidding in her role as Washington D.C.’s top prosecutor.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Democrats staged a walkout in protest of both her and U.S. District Judge Emil Bove, who was confirmed earlier this week in a tight, 50 to 49 vote. She later advanced out of committee on a party-line vote.
“She’s an election denialist, recklessly peddling President Trump’s Big Lie despite even her own Fox News producers and executives warning her to reel it in,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill. and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said of Pirro.
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