Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Vol. VIII
Est. 2019

The Mind Shield

News · Opinion · Politics · Analysis

Legal watchdog files bar complaint against Jeanine Pirro.

Legal watchdog files bar complaint against Jeanine Pirro.
Jeanine Pirro speaks during the swearing-in ceremony as interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 28, 2025 Photo: Leah Millis/Reuters

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro is facing a bar complaint over her attempt to indict six Democratic lawmakers who filmed a video telling military members they can refuse illegal orders.

The complaint from the Legal Accountability Center alleges that Pirro and her subordinates, Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden, abused their prosecutorial powers to seek “meritless” indictments against Donald Trump’s “perceived political enemies,” according to the Associated Press.

The legal watchdog argues that Pirro’s directive to prosecutors to bring the case was “unwarranted, frivolous, and would serve merely to harass or maliciously injure the targets of her order” and that “she knew or should have known, as a government prosecutor, that her directive to seek indictments was not legally or factually supported by ‘probable cause.’”

“By directing the said [Assistant U.S. attorneys] to seek meritless indictments against the Trump administration’s perceived political enemies, she thereby engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice,” the group added.

The complaint is asking the New York court system’s Grievance Committee to investigate Pirro.

In February, a grand jury in Washington refused to indict Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and four House Democrats for urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.

Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition “punishable by DEATH” in a social media post.

The group said in the complaint that “the only purpose could have been political animus and a desire to intimidate perceived enemies of the federal government and the President, who personally criticized the lawmakers’ video as seditious and punishable by death.”

Tim Lauer, a spokesperson for Pirro, dismissed the complaint as frivolous in a statement to The Hill.

“The grand jury, not the prosecutor, decides whether to indict. That is their job. Attempting to weaponize the disciplinary process against prosecutors for doing their jobs amounts to nothing more than a frivolous complaint,” he said.