A legal expert accused U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro of knowingly violating her code of conduct by bringing unwinnable cases before grand juries.
The former Fox News host chosen by President Donald Trump to oversee prosecutions in the District of Columbia has had nearly a dozen cases dismissed since National Guard troops were deployed there, and CNN's Elliot Williams said Pirro had made a stunning admission when she declared "I don't care about the numbers."
"It's not just the mere fact that it's 11 cases," said Williams, a former federal prosecutor. "That number means nothing, it's 11 out of 50, nearly a quarter of cases that have been brought since that period have been dropped in some way. That's either by the office deciding not to bring charges, or a grand jury or a judge saying they're not valid."
Pirro has responded to criticism about her brief tenure as D.C.'s top prosecutor by saying it was her job to prosecute, even if the cases are weak, and Williams was astonished.
"Prosecutors ought to be bringing cases aggressively, they ought to be trying to charge people, but within the confines of the law," Williams said.
Pirro explicitly said "I don't care about the numbers" of cases that fell apart, and Williams said that violated her professional standards.
"Fine, your job is to prosecute, but the U.S. Attorney manual, which is the guidebook for her job, makes clear that prosecutors need to bring what are called 'readily provable offenses,'" Williams said. "If they don't think they can win, they shouldn't be bringing the case. So she's acknowledging that some of these cases they're brining are just junk."
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