President Donald Trump, who has said US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro “choked” over the Reflecting Pool vandalism case, did not fire his longtime ally during an afternoon White House meeting, nor did she offer her resignation, multiple sources told CNN.
Trump had been considering removing her after the Justice Department concluded that the problems with the pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN earlier Monday. The president spent the weekend fuming about that decision, one of the sources said, noting he has been “furious” with Pirro — frustration he later voiced publicly in the Oval Office.
“I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro,” he told reporters at unrelated event. “She folded like an umbrella.”
Later that afternoon, Trump met at the White House with both Pirro and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a person familiar with the meeting told CNN. Others were also present at the meeting.
The Reflecting Pool case has put the two Trump appointees at odds in recent days. In a court filing last week, Pirro’s office directly blamed other federal agencies, including the Interior Department, for not being forthcoming with information about the bungled renovation. Burgum, meanwhile, has stood by Trump’s allegations of vandalism.
