Asshole of the Month: Jeanine Pirro
Most American Presidents appoint officials to cabinet posts and other federal jobs based on their experience or expertise in the relevant fields, as it should be. But Donald Trump has practiced a different modus operandi: Appointees are chosen based on their slavish devotion to him in public forums, and one forum in particular: the Fox News network. It’s like a farm club supplying players to major league baseball teams—only athletic prowess is not really important; what counts instead is a professed love for the team’s manager. Kiss his ass, and suddenly you’re playing shortstop, even if you can’t throw or bat.
In his first term, Trump often called in to Fox News shows to chat with hosts or consulted in private with network stars like Sean Hannity. But in Trump 2.0, no fewer than 23 former or current Fox News mouthpieces have been appointed to powerful jobs in his administration, including Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense), Dan Bongino (Deputy Director of the FBI), Sean Duffy (Secretary of Transportation), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), Michael Waltz (U.N. Ambassador), Mike Huckabee (Ambassador to Israel), Keith Kellogg (special envoy for Ukraine and Russia), Tom Homan (border czar), and several other lesser luminaries, leading Bill Maher to joke, “I’ve heard of state-run TV. This is TV-run state.”
The latest Fox blowhard to get a federal job is Jeanine Pirro, the longtime host of Justice With Judge Jeanine and costar of The Five. Last May, Trump appointed her as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro does have some experience for the job, but it’s been two decades since she last practiced as assistant district attorney and then district attorney in Westchester County, New York. There, she focused on prosecuting domestic violence cases, but was criticized for ignoring organized crime, especially after her then-husband was convicted of several felonies and was allegedly tied to the mob. She also refused to reopen the murder case of wrongfully convicted Jeffrey Deskovic, who spent 16 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence, plus the real killer’s confession. That negligence cost the county millions after Deskovic sued.
