Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — and a 2021 insurrection apologist who once called for criminally charging the prosecutors who worked on those cases — is set to attend a gala that will present a lifetime award to Tim Heaphy, an outspoken critic of the Capitol riot who was the lead investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee.
According to an email obtained by NOTUS and several interviews with sources, the Assistant United States Attorneys Association for the District of Columbia will honor Heaphy with the Robert A. Shuker Memorial Award. The professional association, which includes current and former federal prosecutors in the nation’s capital, described the award in its email as “given annually to a former AUSA who demonstrates a distinguished contribution to the administration of justice while emulating the outstanding qualities of Judge Robert A. Shuker: integrity, scholarship, hard work, wit, and exceptional demeanor.”
Heaphy, a former federal prosecutor in the district’s U.S. attorney’s office, was the chief investigative counsel for the Jan. 6 committee when it uncovered how President Donald Trump knew those attacking the U.S. Capitol were armed, plotted to stay in power after being told he lost the 2020 election, ruined the lives of Republican officials who stood in his way and thought then-Vice President Mike Pence “deserved” the threats on his life for refusing to go along with the plan.
After winning the presidential election last year, Trump clung to his opinion that “everybody on that committee … should go to jail.”
The White House has since engaged in a yearlong retaliation campaign to fire or push out most of the Department of Justice prosecutors who subsequently worked on cases against Jan. 6 rioters, all of whom were pardoned en masse on Trump’s first day back in the White House. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are also actively working on criminal investigations against Trump’s political enemies.
That makes it all the more notable that Pirro, a MAGA acolyte who took over the regional DOJ office that ran the Jan. 6 prosecutions, is scheduled to be present when the attorney who played such a prominent role is honored for his life’s work. As a Fox News host in 2020, Pirro spread baseless conspiracy theories that rejected Trump’s reelection loss. Court documents show that Fox News decided not to air her show the day the network declared Trump had lost the 2020 election, with one network executive calling her a “reckless maniac.” She later referred to jailed Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages.” Fox News’ role in covering the election and its aftermath — as well as some TV hosts’ private conversations with Trump family members — were exposed by the Jan. 6 committee.
Pirro did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening.
A person familiar with her schedule confirmed to NOTUS that she is set to attend the award ceremony Thursday, as all her predecessors have done for years.
Heaphy also authored the definitive report commissioned by the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, to assess the failures that allowed Unite the Right protesters in 2017 to violently attack anti-fascist demonstrators and kill a counterprotester named Heather Heyer.
Last year, Heaphy published a book called “Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy.” On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Review of Books examined how Heaphy drew a through line from the neo-Nazi rally to the Jan. 6 insurrection, with the review writing about “our current inability to protect democracy” and noting that “those events were harbingers of the current breakdown in pluralistic democracy.”
At the local professional association, the committee that decided to honor Heaphy is made up of several attorneys and D.C. Superior Court Senior Judge Nan R. Shuker, the widow of the late jurist for whom the award is named. A former prosecutor familiar with the award told NOTUS that judges are clearly sending a signal to the Trump administration for aggressively seeking to punish anyone involved in holding Jan. 6 rioters accountable.
Michelle N. Bradford, the current president of the D.C. assistant United States attorney association, declined to discuss the committee’s decision or how it could be perceived politically.
“It is a very prestigious and noteworthy award, as are all of the awards that we award that night,” she said.
Leave a Reply