Pirro Convenes a Grand Jury Without a Case
A special grand jury can brand a man culpable without ever convicting him — and Trump is publicly pricing Pirro’s replacement while she decides whether to aim it at Fauci.
Jeanine Pirro convened a special grand jury in Washington this week — a panel so rare the Justice Department declined to say what it will examine — and she did it while President Trump publicly weighs firing her. The Washington Post reported the move Wednesday morning. Steven Vandervelden, the Pirro ally her office previously assigned to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the city’s crime statistics, oversees it.
Pirro picked this instrument for its mechanics. A special grand jury investigates rather than charges. It can sit for eighteen months, extendable to three years. When it finishes, it can publish a report naming citizens it never indicted — on a “preponderance of the evidence,” a bar far beneath what a conviction requires. A prosecutor who cannot win a case can still stamp a government finding on a man’s name.
Pirro already holds one referral, and it points one direction. Senators held Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress last week and sent the case to the Justice Department after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 106 times before Rand Paul’s committee. Paul demanded prosecution. New York magazine printed Pirro’s dilemma as its Wednesday headline: indict Fauci, or anger Trump. Trump volunteered Tuesday that he hasn’t spoken to Pirro or Attorney General Todd Blanche about prosecuting Fauci — a denial nobody had requested.
