It’s been a rough start to the year for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host turned top federal prosecutor, has endured a string of embarrassing setbacks since January. According to the most recent reports, Pirro’s office shelved its effort to indict former President Joe Biden for his use of an autopen to sign executive actions while in office. Her office reportedly couldn’t assemble anything even resembling a criminal case.
The autopen inquiry, such as it was, was just the latest collapsed effort from Pirro to punish President Donald Trump’s enemies. Her failures are a sign that even as the Justice Department has fallen under the White House’s control, the law still doesn’t automatically bend to his will. And Trump’s vendettas remain stalled out. The limits to his power have become a little clearer.
Her failures are a sign that even as the Justice Department has fallen under the White House’s control, the law still doesn’t automatically bend to his will.
As if in the market for a new conspiracy, some Republicans have attempted to make hay out of Biden’s autopen usage. In short, Trump and others have claimed without evidence that Biden aides essentially forged the former president’s signature on executive orders toward the end of his term. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., went so far as to claim last year that “Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history.” The supposed scandal has even become something of a meme within the Trump White House, as showcased on the recently installed so-called Wall of Fame where Trump replaced Biden’s portrait with an autopen.
Trump was anything but subtle about his demands that Biden be investigated for, well, something autopen-related. In June, he issued a memo to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding the Justice Department investigate whether the autopen was part of a grand plot to hide the former president’s alleged cognitive decline. (Biden has denied Trump’s claims, saying last year in a statement, “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.”)
The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has jurisdiction over federal crimes committed within Washington, making it an obvious choice of venue for this fishing expedition. Pirro’s predecessor, acting U.S. attorney Ed Martin, opened an investigation into Biden last spring, according to The New York Times, and it continued after Pirro was confirmed to her role in August. But the probe reportedly suffered, the Times reports, because:
Investigators were never quite clear what crime, if any, had been committed by the Biden administration’s use of the autopen.
It was also unclear whether investigators should focus their attention on the actions of Mr. Biden’s aides or on Mr. Biden himself, given that the United States Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling in 2024, granted broad immunity to presidents for most acts undertaken as part of their official duties.
In recent months, prosecutors determined that despite Mr. Trump’s desire to seek vengeance against Mr. Biden and his aides, there was no credible case to bring, the people said. The prosecutors never brought a potential indictment before a grand jury.
It’s hard to tell whether the autopen case never making it to a grand jury makes it more or less of an embarrassment than other recent fiascos. Last month, federal prosecutors from Pirro’s office failed to persuade a grand jury to indict six Democratic members of Congress on charges of seditious conspiracy. Their alleged crime: filming a video in which lawmakers reminded members of the military and intelligence community that they have an obligation not to follow illegal orders. Speaking of those lawmakers and their video, Trump said in an interview last year that “in the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death.” The grand jury’s refusal to indict, though, is a good sign its members disagree.
Pirro has managed at times to be a bit too gung-ho about working toward Trump’s implied goals. In January, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell revealed that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into him over renovations to the independent agency’s Washington headquarters. Pirro approved the inquiry last fall, according to the Times, which prompted the normally staid Powell to go public after receiving a subpoena from her office. Trump denied any knowledge of the investigation, distancing himself from what Pirro might have hoped would win her praise.
It is for the best that Pirro’s efforts have languished. It is good that the justice system continues to rely on facts and evidence. But her failure to deliver on carrying out Trump’s vindictive agenda can’t overshadow the fact that she felt the need to try at all — and will likely try again.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.