(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is swearing in Jeanine Pirro as the interim U.S. attorney for D.C. during a ceremony in the Oval Office Wednesday afternoon — making her the latest Fox News host appointed by Trump.
Earlier this month, Trump tapped Pirro — a former judge and prosecutor who most recently hosted Fox News’ “The Five” — for the job after controversy around his previous pick, Ed Martin.
Martin, who had served as D.C.’s interim top prosecutor, lost GOP support for the job. Martin’s past, specifically his defense of Jan. 6 rioters and inflammatory rhetoric around the Capitol attack, plagued his nomination.
Pirro, a Trump ally, faced her first test as the top federal prosecutor in Washington last week when she spoke about the response to the deadly shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers.
During a news conference, Pirro said her office is investigating the case as a hate crime and act of terrorism.
“A young couple at the beginning of their life’s journey, about to be engaged in another country, had their bodies removed in the cold of the night in a foreign city in a body bag. We are not going to tolerate that anymore,” Pirro said during a press briefing last Thursday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated, especially in the nation’s capital.”
Pirro marks the latest Fox News personality to join the ranks of the Trump administration. Some of the most notable Fox News alumni appointed in Trump’s second administration include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who hosted “Fox & Friends Weekend,” and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who hosted “Unfiltered With Dan Bongino” before he left the network in 2023.
Pirro has been a longtime ally of Trump, dating back to her time as a prominent prosecutor in New York. She was an early supporter of his 2016 campaign and publicly defended him during the “Access Hollywood” tape scandal.
One of Trump’s final acts before leaving office in 2021 was issuing a last-minute pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, a longtime GOP donor.
With less than an hour before his term ended, Trump granted one final pardon to Albert Pirro, who was convicted more than two decades ago on 34 counts of conspiracy and tax evasion after he was found to have improperly deducted over $1 million in lavish personal expenses in tax write-offs for his businesses.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Will Steakin contributed to this report.
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