Jeanine Pirro survived a tense White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday—but her job may remain on thin ice after the president accused his longtime ally of “choking” in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case.
Trump had been seriously considering removing Pirro as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN.
The president reportedly spent the weekend fuming after Pirro’s office filed a motion to dismiss a felony case against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn and blamed the pool’s damage on a flawed renovation instead of vandalism.
Trump felt “blindsided” because he was not warned about the filing beforehand, a senior administration official told CNN. The president confronted Pirro during a Saturday phone call that one official described as less than cordial.
Their conversation “wasn’t pretty,” the official said.
The simmering dispute burst into public view Monday when Trump unloaded on Pirro during an Oval Office event.
“I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro,” Trump told reporters. “She folded like an umbrella.”
Trump said Pirro “made a mistake” and appeared to buckle under pressure from the judge overseeing the case.
“The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine,” Trump said. “And frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked.”
Pirro later met with Trump at the White House alongside Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. She was not fired and did not offer her resignation during the meeting, multiple sources told CNN. ABC News separately reported that Trump had privately discussed with aides whether to dismiss her, although sources cautioned that no final decision had been made.
The blowup followed a stunning reversal by Pirro’s office in the case against Hearn, a 67-year-old three-time Olympian who was accused of ripping newly installed sealant from the bottom of the Reflecting Pool.
When Pirro announced Hearn’s indictment in July, she called the alleged damage a “deliberate act of destruction” and vowed to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
“These monuments belong to all of us, and we will protect them—and hold accountable those who seek to deface or diminish them,” Pirro said in the original Justice Department announcement.
But prosecutors later said evidence withheld by the Interior Department painted a dramatically different picture.
In its motion to dismiss, Pirro’s office accused the department of providing “less than fulsome information” and said documents obtained after the indictment strongly suggested that a rushed and defective installation caused the pool’s lining to peel.
“Had DOI been forthcoming with the information clearly in its possession, the government would not have sought a grand jury indictment,” prosecutors wrote.
The court filing also said inspectors found damage in the middle of the pool, an area where a vandal would have been unlikely to peel the lining.
“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” prosecutors concluded.
Hearn, who pleaded not guilty, maintained that he merely touched a section of lining that was already peeling. Pirro’s office also dropped misdemeanor property-destruction cases against three other people accused of damaging the pool.
Trump, however, continues to insist that vandals played a role. He has acknowledged that the contractor rushed to finish the roughly $14.7 million renovation before the Fourth of July, but said construction problems do not explain all the damage.
“I’m not saying I was 100% thrilled with the contractor,” Trump said Monday. “But in addition, there was vandalism.”
Burgum has also stood by that conclusion, declaring that “the evidence is clear” that vandals repeatedly damaged the landmark.
Pirro reportedly told Trump that career prosecutors were responsible for the motion, which was signed by a veteran prosecutor overseeing D.C. Superior Court cases. But after Trump’s blistering public rebuke and their high-stakes White House meeting, the former Fox News star’s future remains anything but secure.
