The DC US Attorney’s Office Takes Up Trump Retribution
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that when a group of U.S. attorneys gathered at the White House last week for an event, President Trump berated the group for being “weak” and not “moving fast enough to prosecute his favored targets,” in WSJ’s words. Trump’s outburst, during which he also called the group of U.S. attorneys ineffective, happened during a photo shoot, according to the Journal. He reportedly told the group gathered that they weren’t doing enough to help Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche do their work. It’s been clear for some time that Trump believes DOJ leadership’s job is to serve as his personal lawyers and, as such, to enact his own personal retribution.
Former Fox News host-turned-U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro was in the room.
A day later, the Federal Reserve received grand jury subpoenas from federal prosecutors and Pirro took responsibility for the move in a social media post, claiming the subpoenas came after USAO DC did not receive responses to information requests sent to the Fed in December. The grand jury subpoenas were related to testimony that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave Congress last summer about a Feb building renovation.
“None of this would have happened if they had just responded to our outreach,” Pirro insisted on X. “This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less.”
As my colleague David Kurtz noted in Morning Memo this week, reporting has emerged that suggests that Pirro did not consult senior officials at DOJ before subpoenaing the Fed. Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte have also denied signing off on the matter, though other reports give Pulte a central role. Per the New York Times:
Senior officials at the department were stunned, and annoyed, that Ms. Pirro did not consult them on an investigation of such international importance, the officials with knowledge of her actions said.
That’s not the only wildly aggressive move USAO DC has made since Trump tore into the group of U.S. attorneys at the White House last Thursday.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) — the Dem senator and former CIA official who organized the release of a video featuring elected Democrats/veterans reminding members of the military that it is their duty to ignore illegal orders — told the Times on Monday that federal prosecutors are investigating her. She said she received a request from Pirro’s office asking for an interview with Slotkin or her personal lawyer. This comes as the FBI has also requested interviews with the lawmakers involved in the video and the Department of Defense has opened proceedings to examine the retirement ranking of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), another prominent member of Congress who participated in the video. Kelly has sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in response.
If Pirro was looking for a way to please Trump in the midst of his outburst about U.S. attorneys not being sycophantic enough, both Slotkin and Powell would be obvious targets. Trump has been raging against Powell for years and Slotkin earned Trump’s ire after the video was released. It caught his attention because it was implicitly critical of his actions in the Gulf of Mexico and his deployment of the troops into U.S. cities. He responded to the video by suggesting the Democratic members of Congress be arrested and charged with “seditious behavior, punishable by death.”
Slotkin posted a video about the news of Pirro’s request saying she would not be silenced.
“Right now, speaking out against the abuse of power is the most patriotic thing we can do,” she said.
Reign of Error
Longtime TPM friend and contributor covering the religious right in America, Sarah Posner, is launching a new podcast that we encourage you to check out. “Reign of Error” will explore how religious and ideological extremism and white Christian nationalism — issues very close to this author’s heart as an ex-evangelical preacher’s daughter — has become a focal point of U.S. politics, both leading up to and during the Trump era. Here’s how Sarah described her new project to us:
Each 45-minute episode begins with a major news event and expands into a deeper, historically grounded conversation with leading scholars and journalists. Our goal is to bridge investigative reporting and public scholarship, offering clarity and context at a moment of profound democratic strain.
Reign of Error launches January 22. Look for a new episode every Thursday in your favorite podcast app.
Hawley Folds
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has reversed his position on whether President Trump needs Congress’ permission to deploy troops to Venezuela after the president broke ties with the senator and longtime ally over his recent vote.
Last week, Hawley voted with a handful of other Republican senators and Democrats to advance a measure that would block Trump from using military force in Venezuela — the country whose regime leader Trump just physically removed and brought to the U.S. to face narcoterrorism charges — without Congress’ permission. Trump responded by lashing out at Hawley and the other Republicans who helped advance the measure, threatening to have them removed from office. Hawley initially brushed things off, telling reporters that he and Trump have a good relationship.
Now the senator from Missouri is backtracking entirely. Hawley reportedly told Punchbowl News Wednesday that he will now vote against the war powers resolution after conversations with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He said Rubio assured him that Trump was not planning to send troops to Venezuela. The Hill confirmed Punchbowl’s reporting.
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