Trump Appoints former Westchester DA Interim US Attorney in DC
By Dan Murphy
More than 30 years after she served Westchester County as District Attorney, Jeanine Pirro is returning back to public service. The popular Fox TV celebrity and best selling author has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Trump posted on Truth Social, “I am pleased to announce that Judge Jeanine Pirro will be appointed interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Jeanine was Assistant District Attorney for Westchester County, New York, and then went on to serve as County Judge, and District Attorney, where she was the first woman ever to be elected to those positions. During her time in office, Jeanine was a powerful crusader for victims of crime. Her establishment of the Domestic Violence Bureau in her Prosecutor’s Office was the first in the Nation. She excelled in all ways. In addition to her Legal career, Jeanine previously hosted her own Fox News Show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, for ten years, and is currently Co-Host of The Five, one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television. 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. She is in a class by herself. Congratulations Jeanine!”
Trump and Pirro go back to the 1990’s in Westchester, when the President was building and developing in Westchester and Jeanine’s husband Al Pirro, was the attorney for developers including Trump.
More important, Pirro has advocated for President Trump and his policies on the Fox News show “The Five,” which is the #1 show on Cable TV. “At 5 PM/ET, FNC’s The Five secured a staggering 4.7 million viewers and 517,000 in 25-54 demo, leading all of cable news among total viewership for the month and beating the newly revamped CBS Evening News (4.6 million viewers),” writes Fox TV.
Pirro was the first woman elected a Westchester County Judge in 1990, and the first woman elected Westchester DA in 1993. She was reelected in 1997 and in 2001. She was at the forefront of prosecuting cases of domestic abuse.
In 2006, Pirro was considering running for US Senate against Hillary Clinton, but instead ran for NY Attorney General and lost to Andrew Cuomo.
After her third term as Westchester DA, Pirro began a second career in TV, first with the CW Network and then in 2011 with Fox News. She has authored six books, with her Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy in 2018 on the NY Times Best seller list.
That’s the good news on J. Pirro. But there is a lot of negative thoughts and victims in Westchester who can’t stand her. Jeff Deskovic is the first that comes to mind.
Pirro refused to reopen the case of Deskovic, who was falsely convicted in the murder of Angela Correa in 1990. Deskovic served 16 years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him.
“She had a moral responsibility to review my case, or at least to allow the new DNA evidence and testing to be used, but instead she kept the ball rolling against me,” said Deskovic. “The DNA databank began in 1997-98. If she had agreed to further testing then, I could have been home eight or nine years earlier.”
The Richard DiGuglielmo Jr. case in Dobbs Ferry is one that sticks out in this reporter’s mind, and also in Deskovic’s, as a wrongful conviction. In 1996, DiGuglielmo, an off-duty NYPD officer, was at his father’s deli, when his dad got into a violent confrontation with Charles Campbell over a parking spot.
Campbell ended up taking out a baseball bat and striking DiGuglielmo Sr., breaking his arm. As he raised the bat again to strike him in the head, DiGuglielmo Jr. shot and killed Campbell. Pirro won a conviction of DiGugllelmo for second-degree murder, and the case has continued with his release and then return to prison where he remains today.
“You have an off-duty cop that shoots and kills a bat-wielding man who is about to hit his dad in the head after fracturing his hand,” said Deskovic. “What was he supposed to do? Watch his father die? Witnesses spent four nights and were being urged to change their story from self-defense to unjustifiable shooting. Her office withheld that information. Judge Bellantoni overturned the conviction, but he is still in jail.”
One of the things that bothers Deskovic is that Pirro has never apologized for her role in keeping him in jail an extra nine years for a crime he didn’t commit. “She has never acknowledged that her office did wrong, or that we learned a lesson from this case where we went wrong, nothing. But I still want that apology,” he said.
Deskovic says that when she sees Pirro on TV: “I just turn the channel in disgust. The false image that she portrays bothers me. She talks the talk but didn’t walk the walk here in Westchester and especially in my case. I don’t think she should be on the air. Her husband Al went to prison for tax evasion for tax returns that she signed. She also wanted Bernie Kerick to illegally tape-record her husband. But now we are all supposed to take her views on TV seriously.”
Now Pirro, if confirmed, with be the acting US Attorney for the 2nd most important district in the USA, the District of Columbia.
Pirro replaces Edward Martin Jr. as US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Trump appointed Martin but Martin could not get the 50 votes needed in the US Senate for confirmation.
MAGA Republicans are gleeful over Pirro’s nomination. “In 2024, Judge Jeanine Pirros salary was $5 MILLION dollars. As head of the DC US Attorney’s office she will make $195K. Jeanine isn’t in it for the money or fame. She already had both. She’s in it for the love of country. Jeanine Pirro is a true patriot,” posted Mila Joy.
“This is EPIC! Judge Jeanine is a freaking BULLDOG! She takes NO sh*t from the Democrats,” posted Nick Sortor.
“I stand with Judge Jeanine Pirro, Dan Bongino, and Pete Hegseth who gave up cushy jobs for a higher calling,” posted Josh Dunlap. Pirro joins Hegseth, Bongino and Sean Duffy, who all worked at Fox TV, in the Trump White House.
