Jeanine Pirro
Jeanine Pirro is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, appointed in 2025, and was previously a television host, a district attorney and a county judge in New York. All of her entries fall in 2026 and record charging decisions and the use of prosecutorial authority.
2026 Events (6)
DOJ indicted former Olympian David Hearn on felony charge for touching Reflecting Pool liner, serving Trump's vandalism narrative
On July 2, 2026, a federal grand jury indicted former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn, 67, on a felony destruction of government property charge after he was arrested on June 19 for reaching into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to feel a partially detached piece of the blue liner installed during Trump's $14.7 million renovation. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced the felony charge at a press conference, claiming Hearn had "forcefully and violently" pulled up the liner, a characterization Hearn and his lawyers disputed. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison; Hearn's attorneys called it "outrageous" and "a misuse of government power" designed to provide political cover for the administration's renovation failure.
Federal "summer surge" to nearly double DC National Guard to ~5,000 for America 250
Federal officials announced a "summer surge" of the DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force, requesting roughly 1,500 additional National Guard members to raise the federalized troop presence in Washington, D.C. to about 5,000 (up from ~2,800) ahead of the America 250 / July 4, 2026 celebrations. The plan keeps Guard members on Title 32 orders under the D.C. National Guard and folds militarized enforcement tools — high- visibility patrols, drones, tactical K-9 units, and helicopters — into routine policing of the capital, with no announced end date.
Bloomberg investigation revealed DOJ subpoenaed X for an anonymous ICE critic's identity, address, and banking data
On May 28, 2026, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Department of Justice, under U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, had issued a federal grand jury subpoena to X seeking the name, address, and banking information of an anonymous user, represented by attorney Joshua Koltun, over a sarcastic post referencing the ICE officer who shot Minneapolis protester Renee Good. The subpoena followed DOJ's withdrawal of an earlier administrative summons for the same information after Koltun challenged it, and neither DOJ nor the user have been told what crime is under investigation. The user has moved to quash the subpoena in federal court, in a case pending before Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.
DOJ sought grand jury indictment of six lawmakers over anti-illegal-orders video; grand jury rejected the case
On February 10, 2026, attorneys from the office of Jeanine Pirro, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, presented a criminal case to a federal grand jury seeking to indict six Democratic members of Congress — Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and Reps. Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, and Chrissy Houlahan — over a November 2025 social media video reminding military and intelligence personnel of their duty to refuse illegal orders. The grand jury declined to find probable cause, rejecting the indictment; no career federal prosecutors were involved in bringing the case. The attempt followed President Trump's public accusations that the lawmakers had committed "seditious" acts "punishable by death," and came about two months after an FBI counterterrorism inquiry into the same six lawmakers over the same video.
DOJ moved to dismiss Steve Bannon's Jan. 6 contempt-of-Congress conviction, seeking to erase it rather than pardon him
On February 9, 2026, the Justice Department — through U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's filing, publicly backed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — asked both the federal district court and the Supreme Court to dismiss Steve Bannon's 2022 contempt-of-Congress conviction with prejudice, stating only that "dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice." Bannon had already served his four-month sentence for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena; the filing sought to erase the conviction itself rather than secure a pardon.
Slotkin revealed Pirro's office sought interviews with Democratic lawmakers over anti-illegal-orders video
Sen. Elissa Slotkin revealed on January 14, 2026 that Jeanine Pirro, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, had asked to interview her the previous week about a November 2025 video in which she and five other Democratic members of Congress reminded U.S. troops of their duty to refuse illegal orders. Reps. Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan confirmed to reporters that they received similar interview requests from Pirro's office. The requests followed a November 2025 FBI counterterrorism interview request over the same video and preceded a February 2026 attempt by Pirro's office to indict the same six lawmakers before a grand jury.