JEFF CHILDERS<\/p>\n
Yesterday, ABC ran a guffaw-worthy story headlined, \u201cTrump appoints Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as top prosecutor in DC.\u201d It was classic Trump; part political theater, part middle finger to the establishment, and part Machiavellian chess.<\/p>\n
From a purely legal perspective, it\u2019s eyebrow-raising, to say the least. \u201cJudge\u201d Pirro, a Fox news commentator, hasn\u2019t tried a case in decades. She was temporarily benched by Fox for inflammatory remarks about the 2020 elections, and was named as a defendant in the Dominion voting machine defamation case.<\/p>\n
Trump appointed Judge Pirro after his preferred choice, Ed Martin, couldn\u2019t clear the Senate confirmation gauntlet. Martin recently lost support among key Senate Republicans, which made his nomination politically dead on arrival. Specifically, Senator Thom Tillis, a weak Republican Senate Judiciary Committee member crucial to advancing Martin\u2019s nomination out of committee, publicly spurned Martin since he\u2019d defended several January 6th defendants and was prominent in the \u201cstop the steal\u201d moment.<\/p>\n
Trump had to act, because a critical deadline was looming on May 20th. Under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7?546(d), if the President does not confirm a new U.S. Attorney within 120 days of the previous interim appointment, then the D.C. Chief Judge \u2014here, the notorious Judge Boasberg\u2014 could have appointed a U.S. Attorney to serve indefinitely until a permanent one was confirmed by the Senate.<\/p>\n
By naming Pirro as interim U.S. Attorney, Trump temporarily bypassed the confirmation process. Under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 546(c), interim appointments can serve 120 days. So he now has three months to confirm a permanent replacement.<\/p>\n
Without any disrespect to Judge Pirro, Trump\u2019s interim appointment of a Fox news opinion anchor instead of a, well, more traditional candidate, was a political hand-grenade, a way to punish Senator Tillis for refusing to advance Martin and focus public attention on Tillis\u2019 stubborn refusal to cooperate.<\/p>\n
If Trump had picked a milquetoast compromise candidate for Martin\u2019s replacement, it would have signaled weakness. Instead, he chose someone even more controversial. It was classic brinksmanship\u2014 he\u2019s forcing the GOP Senate to either go along or look weak and uncooperative by rejecting Pirro too.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, as the second prong poking the Establishment in the eyeball, Trump shifted Ed Martin to, get this, three new jobs: Director of the \u201cWeaponization Working Group,\u201d Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Presidential Pardon Attorney.<\/p>\n
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\nIf Martin is given real investigative power, it could become a full-blown counter-offensive within DOJ. We\u2019re only guessing, but by announcing that Martin will head the \u201cWeaponization Working Group,\u201d President Trump is effectively creating an internal DOJ task force to audit, expose, and possibly prosecute the prosecutors\u2014 i.e., the very same agencies and officials who went after him and his allies during Biden\u2019s term.<\/p>\n
The odds are good that Martin will be given real investigative power. The \u201cWeaponization Working Group\u201d was established by Attorney General Bondi on her first day in office in February. Bondi\u2019s task force was responding to Executive Order 14147, titled \u201cEnding the Weaponization of the Federal Government,\u201d which directed agency heads to identify and take \u2018appropriate action\u2019 against past politically motivated misconduct by intelligence, justice, or regulatory agencies.<\/p>\n
In turn, EO 14147 was signed by President Trump on his first day in office.<\/p>\n
In other words, the Weaponization task force was one of both President Trump\u2019s and AG Bondi\u2019s first priorities. Before yesterday, it wasn\u2019t clear whether they would follow through with anything substantive in terms of investigations and accountability. But, combined with bulldog Martin\u2019s new assignments, it begins to look like they are loading the prosecutorial cannon, which should make the Establishment extremely nervous.<\/p>\n
By blocking Martin from becoming U.S. Attorney for D.C., limp Senate Republicans and the Establishment may have thought they dodged a firebrand. Instead, their stubborness landed Ed an even more influential role with no confirmation, no term limit, and arguably more reach: heading a DOJ-wide internal investigations unit with a shovel for digging up deep-state skeletons.<\/p>\n
…………..<\/p>\n
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9N4wMoqMzbw<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" JEFF CHILDERS Yesterday, ABC ran a guffaw-worthy story headlined, \u201cTrump appoints Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as top prosecutor in DC.\u201d It was classic Trump; part political theater, part middle finger to the establishment, and part Machiavellian chess. From a … Continue reading