Jeanine Pirro’s office has decided to drop the case against six Democratic lawmakers who urged members of the military and intelligence communities in a social media video to disobey illegal orders, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News.
About two weeks ago, as first reported by NBC News, a grand jury in Washington, DC, unanimously rejected an attempt by Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, to sue the lawmakers over the video, indicating that the grand jury did not think that the government had passed even the minimum legal threshold of cause needed to bring the case.
Although the potential case against the six lawyers is now considered dead in Washington, that decision will not prevent a federal prosecutor from trying to bring the case to another federal court district, although there have been no public indications that will happen.
Legal experts and Democrats criticized the unprecedented attempt to use the Justice Department’s broad powers to punish six members of Congress as a political attack on protected free speech and a sign that the roads that existed during the Trump administration were eroding.
Pirro’s office tried to impeach six Democratic lawmakers, all with military or intelligence backgrounds: Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona and Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Jason Crow of Colorado and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.
In a series of social media posts, President Donald Trump said the lawmakers were traitors who had committed a “CROSS OF THE HIGHEST LEVEL.”
While Trump suggested that the lawmakers’ behavior could be punishable by death, the grand jury found no evidence that crime.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, military members are obligated to obey only lawful orders and must reject those that appear to be unlawful.
Lawyers said after efforts to impeach him failed that they were intimidated by attempts to suppress freedom of speech.
“Whether Pirro wins or not is not the point,” Slotkin said. “It’s that President Trump continues to arm our justice system against his perceived enemies.”
Asked if Pirro and Trump had discussed the possible lawsuit against the attorneys, Pirro’s spokesman declined to comment. A White House official said the administration does not comment on conversations the president may or may not have.
Since the Watergate era, administrations of both parties have worked in different ways to create a firewall between the Justice Department and the White House, allowing the president to broadly set his executive policy, but avoid interfering with prosecutorial decision-making or even communications that could create the appearance of impropriety.
Former Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a 2021 memo that the Justice Department will not advise the White House of pending or contemplated criminal charges to “prevent” leaders from “improper influence,” unless it is “essential to the performance of the president’s duties.”
The question of possible political influence in criminal investigations has traditionally been a bifurcated issue. In 2016, when Bill Clinton boarded the plane of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch while the Justice Department was investigating Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails, the brief encounter on the tarmac at the airport sparked outrage among some Republicans, with Trump himself calling it “very bad” and “very bad” and considering it one of the biggest stories of 2016.
Last year, Trump publicly sent a message on social media pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against a number of his political enemies, and congratulated the FBI after raiding a Fulton County, Georgia, election center in the 2020 presidential election.
FBI Director Kash Patel put Trump on speakerphone while opening a drink in the locker room Sunday after the U.S. men’s hockey team won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, according to a video posted on social media, although the two did not discuss the investigation when Trump spoke to the hockey players.
Pirro, a former Fox News anchor, has a decades-long relationship with Trump, who appointed him as Washington’s top federal prosecutor after Senate Republicans balked at the nomination of Ed Martin, a longtime civil rights activist and attorney for the January 6 riots who led the “Arms Task Force” and continues to hold the Justice Department’s justice position.
“He’s in a class by himself,” Trump wrote when he nominated Pirro. “Congratulations Jeanine!”
In the days before Pirro’s attorneys presented the case to a grand jury, Pirro made more than a dozen posts praising Trump, though he never publicly spoke about the lawsuit against lawmakers or tied it to Trump. Another caption said the criminal charges were brought “Under the order of @POTUS.” On Monday, he posted a video recorded “outside the White House” in which he praised Trump.
And last week, large banners depicting Trump’s stance were hung outside the Justice Department headquarters.
The New York Times reported last week that Pirro “abruptly” told his team to seek impeachment.
In the letter of Feb. 5 to Pirro who copied the two lawyers who tried to bring the case, Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden, former US Attorney Preet Bharara – representing Slotkin – wrote that it was “strange” that the Department of Justice brought an investigation into the matter. The letter said he had spoken with Pirro’s “special advisers” on Jan. 14 and one on Jan. 27.
“The prosecutors we spoke with in your office, while honorable, were unable to articulate any belief that a criminal case might have been committed or identify any law they relied on that might have been violated,” he wrote, as first reported by the New Republic.
Pirro’s office cannot comment on the judges’ good news.
Bharara later wrote in a letter to Pirro that the grand jury spoke “loudly, clearly and unanimously” and that continuing to pursue the matter would be a violation of Justice Department policy.
Paul Fishman, the former U.S. attorney representing Kelly, wrote in a letter to Pirro’s office that trying to impeach him again would be “a significant abuse of the Department’s authority.”
“This guy thought I was going to jail,” Kelly told reporters Monday. “You want to put me in jail.
Still, he said he will attend Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. “I’m going to continue to do my job, and I’m going to be sitting there in front of him, and he said, “You know, maybe you’ll notice, maybe you won’t, but I feel like it’s my responsibility, you know, to be there.”
