U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro's newly reported "very unusual" move suggests a sinister development in play, MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin said Wednesday.
Rubin took to the airwaves to discuss the convening of a special grand jury in Washington, D.C., with Pirro's top lieutenant Steven Vandervelden tasked with leading the helm.
"Why would Jeanine Pirro want a special grand jury?" Rubin said. "It might be in a circumstancewhere she can statutorily havethat grand jury issue, a reportthat might dirty somebody up."
Rubin based this claim — that Pirro might be setting out to tarnish someone's reputation — on the significance of a single word: special.
"A special grandjury can issue a report bystatute and by federal law,specifically, but it can onlysubmit to the court a report inspecial circumstances," she said.
"That's withrespect to...non-criminal misconduct,malfeasance or misfeasance inoffice involving organizedcriminal activity by someone who is currently a publicofficer or employee."
Said Rubin, "Perhapsthe reason for impaneling aspecial grand jury here hassomething to do with thepermitted subject matter of thereport."
Host Alicia Menendez suggested that Pirro might be targeting Jerome Powell, the former Federal Reserve chair who still serves on its board of governors.
Rubin replied the pool of possible targets was broad — but whoever it was likely could not be hauled into court under usual methods.
"Thinking about why would youwant a special grand jury, itmay be because you alreadyunderstand that you're notgoing to be able to meet thethreshold for indicting someone," she said, "but you want the public to knowthat that person has donesomething that we wouldconsider, in a broader sense,wrong."
Rubin condemned such political attacks as improper — but not unlikely considering the current state of the Justice department.
"That is not the proper purposeof a special grand jury, but Iwould also submit to you, basedon evidence of how this Department of Justice hasbehaved," she said, "It's not beyond whatthey have done in priorsituations or how they thinknecessarily."
Pirro's selection of the lightly experienced Vandervelden was another clue how this special grand jury would operate, argued Rubin.
"He is not is an experienced former federal prosecutor or federal prosecutor at all," she said. "He's not somebody who historically has that DOJ experience you would want in a special grand jury context."