Donald Trump’s trade adviser made it clear on Monday that he hasn’t forgiven career prosecutors at the Justice Department for holding him in contempt of Congress and is mad as hell at Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, for not firing them.
Peter Navarro spoke to Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast about Pirro as the embattled prosecutor wards off threats to her job resulting from her decision to abandon the prosecution of an Olympian over claims that he damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which she said neither the DOJ nor the Department of the Interior has provided evidence to support.
Navarro’s angry rant was spurred by Bannon merely bringing up Pirro’s name.
The right-wing podcaster and former White House “chief strategist” during Trump’s first term spent the entirety of it chuckling along, while trying to calm down Navarro and insisting: “We love Jeanine!”
“Do me a favor, Steve,” said Navarro. “When I’m on camera … you don’t want to talk about something like Jeanine Pirro. Never mention her friggin’ name to me.”
open image in gallery“Because that woman still refuses, refuses to fire John Crabb — who was involved in putting you and me behind bars,” Navarro went on.
A laughing Bannon replied, “stop, stop!” and held his arm out as Navarro ranted.
“When the boss said ‘she choked’,” added Navarro, trailing off. “I’m just telling you. How is that guy still working here who pointed at me in a courtroom and said I was ‘above the law’?”
“Jeanine, are you listening?” Navarro trolled the former Fox News star and New York judge and district attorney.
Navarro toned down his rhetoric on Tuesday when he was asked by reporters for the left-leaning outlet MeidasTouch, but he wouldn’t go so far as endorsing Pirro’s continued service in her position — something which is publicly in doubt after she was seen leaving the White House with large boxes last week, reportedly part of a failed attempt to convince Trump that the damage to the Reflecting Pool was not caused by vandalism as he has repeatedly claimed.
The controversy over the Reflecting Pool has now landed squarely on Pirro’s plate as her agency was left trying to explain why it couldn’t back up in court Trump’s claims that the pool was vandalized with a knife or other sharp utensil.
Pirro withdrew charges against David Hearn, the ex-Olympian originally arrested and charged with the damage, after admitting in court documents that the damage was likely due to a bad installation process as part of the renovations Trump has ordered to the edifice.
open image in galleryThat sent Trump into a rage and he reportedly considered firing Pirro after the charges were dropped. Instead, he publicly badmouthed her on Truth Social and in comments to reporters.
“She said there was no vandalism. There was tremendous vandalism,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “So, she made a terrible mistake. I don’t understand why she did such a stupid thing.”
Trump further said that Pirro ‘folded like an umbrella.”
Navarro’s anger at the Department of Justice stems from his being prosecuted over his refusal to work with the Jan. 6 investigative committee, even under subpoena. Congressional subpoenas carry the legal authority and weight of a similar order in the courts, and Navarro was sentenced to four months in jail over his refusal to cooperate with the investigation into his efforts alongside Trump to overturn the 2020 election.
open image in galleryCrabb has already faced retribution from Trumpworld. He was among a number of DOJ attorneys who were demoted by Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney for D.C. in 2025, over their participation in cases that were politically troublesome for the president and his faction of the GOP, including efforts to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters.
The DOJ spent years tracking down and charging hundreds of participants in the 2021 attack on the Capitol, but those convictions were wiped clean by Donald Trump’s clemency actions in 2025.
Navarro’s comments are not surprising, and he has long been viewed as something of a wild card within the Trump administration.
A senior White House source told The Independent last year of the trade adviser: “Navarro is crazy and most people in the White House see him as a dangerous influence on the president.”