“\u201cThe average person doesn\u2019t appreciate how stunning\u201d it is for a grand jury to outright reject an indictment, as a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in D.C. put it to me. \u201cThe rules are skewed so heavily in favor of the prosecutor that it\u2019s almost comical. But the public is essentially saying, \u2018We do not trust you. We are skeptical of you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pirro, like Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a>, is willing to use her power to try to intimidate and punish Trump\u2019s political opponents \u2014 even if that means degrading herself, the office and DOJ, and wasting taxpayers\u2019 money all at the same time. On top of that, Pirro has managed to antagonize federal judges in the district and racked up a long list of rebukes, which will only make it harder for her and her prosecutors to win in court in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through it all, Pirro is failing to win the indictments, let alone convictions, that Trump craves. She is stumbling not just by the traditional standards of a U.S. Attorney, but also by the Trumpian version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration\u2019s abuse of the Justice Department to pursue Trump\u2019s antagonists would probably be an even bigger story if they were succeeding instead of flailing. The department\u2019s cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were borderline frivolous on the merits, but they got dismissed<\/a> after a judge concluded that Lindsay Halligan, who was separately taken to task<\/a> for serious prosecutorial errors before the Comey grand jury, had been illegally installed as the U.S. Attorney overseeing the cases in the Eastern District of Virginia. The DOJ tried to charge James on two more occasions, but grand jurors rejected those efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, Pirro had joined the pile-on against Trump\u2019s adversaries even before last week\u2019s case. In January, she opened a criminal investigation into whether Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell<\/a> lied to Congress about renovations at the Fed\u2019s D.C. headquarters. The investigation was roundly criticized as a pretextual effort to force Powell to lower interest rates, as Trump has been insisting. It is also blowing up in Trump\u2019s face, with GOP Sen. Thom Tillis vowing to block Kevin Warsh\u2019s nomination<\/a> as Fed chair until the Powell investigation is resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pirro\u2019s effort to indict the six Democratic members of Congress marks her highest profile flop to date, but it is far from the first. Remember Sandwich Guy<\/a>? Pirro made a video mocking the man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent<\/a>, then failed to secure<\/a> felony charges from a grand jury before losing the fallback misdemeanor case<\/a> altogether.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n