Trump US attorney nominee's repudiation of alleged Nazi sympathizer at odds with previous podcast comments
In a recent interview, Interim US attorney for DC Ed Martin, denounced alleged Nazi sympathizer Timothy Hale-Cusanelli. But, KFile reviewed podcast episodes where Martin praised Hale-Cusanelli, calling him, 'a great friend.' CNN KFile's Andrew Kaczynski discusses his investigation.
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CNN
a day ago
- CNN
Pirro endorsed threat to criminally investigate January 6 prosecutors in office she now runs
Jeanine Pirro, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, has a far lengthier public history of controversial comments than her predecessor, Ed Martin, whose nomination failed last month in part over his own past criticism of January 6 prosecutors, Capitol Police officers and federal judges. Pirro has echoed many of those same sentiments, even endorsing possible criminal investigations of prosecutors in the very office she now runs. She's now the top prosecutor in DC and in charge of the largest US attorney's office in the country, which led the government's investigation of Capitol rioters. Pirro's TV appearances have been closely covered in the media, even earning her a recurring sketch character on 'Saturday Night Live.' But her weekly radio show on WABC has received far less scrutiny — despite containing some of her most extreme and conspiratorial rhetoric. A CNN KFile review of just a portion of Pirro's radio shows from 2021 through 2025 found that she has repeatedly endorsed criminal investigations into Trump's perceived political enemies, including federal prosecutors, local officials and judges involved in his various legal cases. Should Trump nominate her permanently for the role, Pirro will have to provide the Senate with a detailed disclosure of every media appearance she's made, which would include hundreds of hours of public comments on TV and the radio over the years. That disclosure process is what ultimately helped sink Martin's nomination, which was withdrawn last month after he failed to disclose hundreds of his own media appearances, including those that undercut his disavowal of an alleged Nazi sympathizer he had repeatedly praised and interviewed. In one January 2025 episode of her WABC radio show, Pirro agreed with a guest who said Justice Department prosecutors handling January 6, 2021, cases should be criminally charged. 'I absolutely agree with that,' Pirro responded. In another November 2024 episode, she expressed openness to targeting not just prosecutors but also the judge who oversaw Trump's New York criminal trial. Pirro now holds the power to pursue internal investigations or influence charging decisions in the nation's capital — at least for the next four months. Her term will end after 120 days if she is not formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate by that time, according to federal law. In addition to her attacks on federal law enforcement and the judiciary, Pirro has spent years promoting false and inflammatory claims. She downplayed the January 6 violence as a political 'narrative,' calling for a Capitol Police officer and DOJ officials to be investigated. Pirro also boosted unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen and was one of several hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News. The lawsuit was later settled by Fox News for more than $787 million. Along with her comments on the 2020 election and January 6, Pirro has also regularly expressed a dystopian view of American society, making a variety of baseless claims, including that young children in public schools are given books teaching how to perform oral sex, that New York state allows doctors to kill newborn babies, and that undocumented immigrants can freely vote using fake names in multiple states. In response to questions from CNN, the Trump administration sent along comments from Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House. Bondi said she was 'thrilled' that Pirro, whom she called a 'dear friend' and 'fearless advocate for the rule of law,' was part of the team at the Department of Justice. The White House also expressed support for Pirro and indicated it intends to nominate her for the position full time. Deputy press secretary Harrison Fields called Pirro 'highly respected' and said CNN's reporting was 'character assassination' — though he did not provide any evidence disputing the factual accuracy of the article. Fields added that such attacks 'undermine the safety of D.C. residents and tourists who would benefit from her nomination.' The Department of Justice's prosecution of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was the largest criminal investigation in American history. It resulted in nearly 1,300 convictions and involved thousands of federal agents and prosecutors led by the US attorney's office in DC. Pirro's acting predecessor, Martin, was critical of this investigation. He fired dozens of those prosecutors earlier this year and launched a probe into their prosecutions. After his nomination collapsed, Martin was appointed to DOJ's 'weaponization' task force investigating politicization and serving as a top pardon attorney. Prior to taking the job running the DC US attorney's office, Pirro repeatedly and publicly called for criminal investigations — not into rioters — but into the former prosecutors overseeing their cases at DOJ. In a November 2024 episode of her weekly Sunday radio show, Pirro interviewed Mike Davis, a former Senate judiciary clerk and right-wing lawyer who has publicly pushed to indict Justice Department lawyers. Davis said he believed there should be charges against all the prosecutors who went after Trump when discussing the New York case against Trump and the January 6 cases. 'I think the Justice Department, starting on January 20, should open a criminal probe on conspiracy against rights. 18 USC, Section 241 for all these Democrat prosecutors and other operatives who have waged this unprecedented republic-ending lawfare and election interference,' he said. 'This can never happen again and we must have consequences for this.' Pirro replied, 'I agree with you, Mike.' Hear Davis on Pirro's radio show in November 2024 Source: The Judge Jeanine Pirro Tunnel to Towers Foundation Show on WABC radio In another episode featuring Davis from January 2025, Davis said New York state Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump's criminal trial in New York, 'must face severe legal, political and financial consequences' because he did not recuse himself from the case over an alleged conflict of interest involving his daughter, who is a Democratic consultant. Later in the show, he added: 'There has to be accountability for this. There has to be internal probes at the Justice Department through the inspector general, the Office of Professional Responsibility and a criminal probe through the US attorney's office. Heads need to roll.' 'I absolutely agree with that,' Pirro responded. Hear Davis on Pirro's radio show in January 2025 Source: The Judge Jeanine Pirro Tunnel to Towers Foundation Show on WABC radio Pirro also asked why they were not identifying for a possible prosecution the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed a January 6 rioter. She called for a special prosecutor to 'go after' the Clintons. And she suggested that former FBI Director James Comey 'needs to be the target of an active criminal investigation' and 'someone who is looked at.' Pirro said in 2025 she was open to prosecuting the judge who presided over Trump's New York trial and spread a conspiracy theory that the judge's daughter — who has worked as a political consultant for some Democratic campaigns — benefited financially by clients fundraising off the case. Pirro said it was 'conceivably' something the Trump administration could charge. Among her more shocking and demonstrably false claims, Pirro said New York law allows doctors to kill fully delivered, breathing babies — a conspiracy theory repeatedly debunked by multiple state investigations — to sell their body parts to Planned Parenthood. 'The law in New York now allows you to have a full-term baby — the baby can be born alive. And what that means in New York is actually breathe — it is born alive. The baby is then put in a comfort zone,' Pirro said in a speech in 2019 to a private university in Florida. 'And the baby, while in that so-called comfort zone, is allowed to rest while the mother decides whether the baby should live or die.' Hear Pirro's false comments in 2019 on Reproductive Health Act Source: Facebook 'And like the emperor in the Roman Colosseum, the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down, the baby is then killed,' she added, sharing a conspiracy that has been thoroughly debunked. There is no evidence that doctors in New York (or any state in the US) are killing newborn babies. That conspiracy theory is just one of many amplified by Pirro. In a 2015 speech in Louisiana, Pirro delivered a series of inflammatory remarks aimed at Muslims, undocumented immigrants and then-President Barack Obama. Pirro later promoted a claim that the United States during the Obama administration supported a Muslim-backed United Nations resolution saying 'people should not be able to criticize religions of other people.' 'That is coming from the Muslim religion. The Muslim religion — they'll chop your head off. I'm not telling you anything you don't know,' she added. In the same speech, Pirro claimed baselessly undocumented immigrants could vote 'four times' in different states by using fake names. 'Let's assume that you're an illegal and you live in my neck of the woods. If you live in New York, you can go to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey. You can vote four times. You can give them a new name every time,' she said. Hear Pirro's false comments in 2015 on undocumented immigrant voter fraud Source: YouTube There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, despite Trump and his supporters' repeated claims. And when discussing Obama, she agreed with an audience member who said that the only reason he had not been impeached was because he was Black. 'He's not going to be impeached because he is who he is,' Pirro said. 'You got it. Now, it's not right because the color of someone's skin does not matter.'
CNN
a day ago
- CNN
Pirro endorsed threat to criminally investigate January 6 prosecutors in office she now runs
Jeanine Pirro, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, has a far lengthier public history of controversial comments than her predecessor, Ed Martin, whose nomination failed last month in part over his own past criticism of January 6 prosecutors, Capitol Police officers and federal judges. Pirro has echoed many of those same sentiments, even endorsing possible criminal investigations of prosecutors in the very office she now runs. She's now the top prosecutor in DC and in charge of the largest US attorney's office in the country, which led the government's investigation of Capitol rioters. Pirro's TV appearances have been closely covered in the media, even earning her a recurring sketch character on 'Saturday Night Live.' But her weekly radio show on WABC has received far less scrutiny — despite containing some of her most extreme and conspiratorial rhetoric. A CNN KFile review of just a portion of Pirro's radio shows from 2021 through 2025 found that she has repeatedly endorsed criminal investigations into Trump's perceived political enemies, including federal prosecutors, local officials and judges involved in his various legal cases. Should Trump nominate her permanently for the role, Pirro will have to provide the Senate with a detailed disclosure of every media appearance she's made, which would include hundreds of hours of public comments on TV and the radio over the years. That disclosure process is what ultimately helped sink Martin's nomination, which was withdrawn last month after he failed to disclose hundreds of his own media appearances, including those that undercut his disavowal of an alleged Nazi sympathizer he had repeatedly praised and interviewed. In one January 2025 episode of her WABC radio show, Pirro agreed with a guest who said Justice Department prosecutors handling January 6, 2021, cases should be criminally charged. 'I absolutely agree with that,' Pirro responded. In another November 2024 episode, she expressed openness to targeting not just prosecutors but also the judge who oversaw Trump's New York criminal trial. Pirro now holds the power to pursue internal investigations or influence charging decisions in the nation's capital — at least for the next four months. Her term will end after 120 days if she is not formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate by that time, according to federal law. In addition to her attacks on federal law enforcement and the judiciary, Pirro has spent years promoting false and inflammatory claims. She downplayed the January 6 violence as a political 'narrative,' calling for a Capitol Police officer and DOJ officials to be investigated. Pirro also boosted unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen and was one of several hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News. The lawsuit was later settled by Fox News for more than $787 million. Along with her comments on the 2020 election and January 6, Pirro has also regularly expressed a dystopian view of American society, making a variety of baseless claims, including that young children in public schools are given books teaching how to perform oral sex, that New York state allows doctors to kill newborn babies, and that undocumented immigrants can freely vote using fake names in multiple states. In response to questions from CNN, the Trump administration sent along comments from Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House. Bondi said she was 'thrilled' that Pirro, whom she called a 'dear friend' and 'fearless advocate for the rule of law,' was part of the team at the Department of Justice. The White House also expressed support for Pirro and indicated it intends to nominate her for the position full time. Deputy press secretary Harrison Fields called Pirro 'highly respected' and said CNN's reporting was 'character assassination' — though he did not provide any evidence disputing the factual accuracy of the article. Fields added that such attacks 'undermine the safety of D.C. residents and tourists who would benefit from her nomination.' The Department of Justice's prosecution of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was the largest criminal investigation in American history. It resulted in nearly 1,300 convictions and involved thousands of federal agents and prosecutors led by the US attorney's office in DC. Pirro's acting predecessor, Martin, was critical of this investigation. He fired dozens of those prosecutors earlier this year and launched a probe into their prosecutions. After his nomination collapsed, Martin was appointed to DOJ's 'weaponization' task force investigating politicization and serving as a top pardon attorney. Prior to taking the job running the DC US attorney's office, Pirro repeatedly and publicly called for criminal investigations — not into rioters — but into the former prosecutors overseeing their cases at DOJ. In a November 2024 episode of her weekly Sunday radio show, Pirro interviewed Mike Davis, a former Senate judiciary clerk and right-wing lawyer who has publicly pushed to indict Justice Department lawyers. Davis said he believed there should be charges against all the prosecutors who went after Trump when discussing the New York case against Trump and the January 6 cases. 'I think the Justice Department, starting on January 20, should open a criminal probe on conspiracy against rights. 18 USC, Section 241 for all these Democrat prosecutors and other operatives who have waged this unprecedented republic-ending lawfare and election interference,' he said. 'This can never happen again and we must have consequences for this.' Pirro replied, 'I agree with you, Mike.' Hear Davis on Pirro's radio show in November 2024 Source: The Judge Jeanine Pirro Tunnel to Towers Foundation Show on WABC radio In another episode featuring Davis from January 2025, Davis said New York state Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump's criminal trial in New York, 'must face severe legal, political and financial consequences' because he did not recuse himself from the case over an alleged conflict of interest involving his daughter, who is a Democratic consultant. Later in the show, he added: 'There has to be accountability for this. There has to be internal probes at the Justice Department through the inspector general, the Office of Professional Responsibility and a criminal probe through the US attorney's office. Heads need to roll.' 'I absolutely agree with that,' Pirro responded. Hear Davis on Pirro's radio show in January 2025 Source: The Judge Jeanine Pirro Tunnel to Towers Foundation Show on WABC radio Pirro also asked why they were not identifying for a possible prosecution the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed a January 6 rioter. She called for a special prosecutor to 'go after' the Clintons. And she suggested that former FBI Director James Comey 'needs to be the target of an active criminal investigation' and 'someone who is looked at.' Pirro said in 2025 she was open to prosecuting the judge who presided over Trump's New York trial and spread a conspiracy theory that the judge's daughter — who has worked as a political consultant for some Democratic campaigns — benefited financially by clients fundraising off the case. Pirro said it was 'conceivably' something the Trump administration could charge. Among her more shocking and demonstrably false claims, Pirro said New York law allows doctors to kill fully delivered, breathing babies — a conspiracy theory repeatedly debunked by multiple state investigations — to sell their body parts to Planned Parenthood. 'The law in New York now allows you to have a full-term baby — the baby can be born alive. And what that means in New York is actually breathe — it is born alive. The baby is then put in a comfort zone,' Pirro said in a speech in 2019 to a private university in Florida. 'And the baby, while in that so-called comfort zone, is allowed to rest while the mother decides whether the baby should live or die.' Hear Pirro's false comments in 2019 on Reproductive Health Act Source: Facebook 'And like the emperor in the Roman Colosseum, the thumbs-up or the thumbs-down, the baby is then killed,' she added, sharing a conspiracy that has been thoroughly debunked. There is no evidence that doctors in New York (or any state in the US) are killing newborn babies. That conspiracy theory is just one of many amplified by Pirro. In a 2015 speech in Louisiana, Pirro delivered a series of inflammatory remarks aimed at Muslims, undocumented immigrants and then-President Barack Obama. Pirro later promoted a claim that the United States during the Obama administration supported a Muslim-backed United Nations resolution saying 'people should not be able to criticize religions of other people.' 'That is coming from the Muslim religion. The Muslim religion — they'll chop your head off. I'm not telling you anything you don't know,' she added. In the same speech, Pirro claimed baselessly undocumented immigrants could vote 'four times' in different states by using fake names. 'Let's assume that you're an illegal and you live in my neck of the woods. If you live in New York, you can go to Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey. You can vote four times. You can give them a new name every time,' she said. Hear Pirro's false comments in 2015 on undocumented immigrant voter fraud Source: YouTube There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, despite Trump and his supporters' repeated claims. And when discussing Obama, she agreed with an audience member who said that the only reason he had not been impeached was because he was Black. 'He's not going to be impeached because he is who he is,' Pirro said. 'You got it. Now, it's not right because the color of someone's skin does not matter.'
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
Turning a Page, Germans Try Celebrating Their Recent Veterans
Like many good Veterans Day celebrations, the one in central Berlin on Sunday featured feats of strength. A former Naval boatswain named Peter Christian Duszynski, 35, pulled on a heavy bulletproof vest and reeled off nine flawless chin-ups. When he got stuck on the 10th, the crowd laughed and cheered him on. For Mr. Duszynski, the reception was welcome. Unlike Americans, British and others, Germans rarely show warm public support for former or active service members. The nation remains deeply ashamed of its Nazi past. Until Sunday, it had not celebrated an official Veterans Day since it reunified at the end of the Cold War. That reticence has been an obstacle as German leaders try to rebuild military strength, in order to counter a hostile Russia and hedge against a shrinking American security umbrella. Officials are now trying to recruit 60,000 new soldiers on very short notice. They need more than money to do it. They need the country to start appreciating its armed forces again. That is why, in the shadow of Berlin's Parliament building, officials staged a main-event veterans' celebration on Sunday. Across Germany, there were hundreds of related festivities, including more street fairs, communal breakfasts, bicycle races, hiking treks and photo exhibitions. 'The soldiers are there, but they are usually not seen,' said Mr. Duszynski, 35, who had missions in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. 'I think it's important that we take steps to become more visible.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
