Former federal prosecutor and CNN legal expert Elie Honig reacted Friday to comments from Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who was furious during an impromptu press conference following a major legal blow to the Trump administration.

Honig described the legal impact after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg granted the order, agreeing with the Fed that Trump's repeated attacks on Fed chair Jerome Powell indicate the investigation into the Federal Reserve's building renovation was pretextual and politically motivated.

"So first of all, that press conference in itself was extraordinary," Honig said. "Ordinarily, whenever you see a U.S. Attorney call a press conference and address the cameras, it's because there's been an indictment or a conviction or a sentence. I don't think I've ever seen a U.S. attorney or an attorney general call a press conference to complain about a ruling that he or she did not like. That was essentially a public temper tantrum."

Honig also fact-checked some of what Pirro said during the unusual press conference.

"You heard Jeanine Pirro say that this judge, Judge Boasberg, is a quote 'activist judge,''" Honig said. "This judge was elevated to the district court by Barack Obama. But before that, he was put on the local D.C. Superior Court by George W. Bush. And in this judge's past, he has actually denied a motion years ago to try to get Donald Trump's tax returns. He ruled in favor of Donald Trump on those tax returns. And then finally, most fundamentally, we just heard Jeanine Pirro complain that the grand jury subpoena is an important tool of prosecutors, which it is. You heard Jeanine Pirro say that the judge 'has taken that tool away from us.' That's not quite right."

The pushback to the investigation was swift, broad and bipartisan, with several congressional Republicans agreeing that it was a mistake to pursue the Fed chair with trumped-up charges.

Late Friday, the case, such as it was, unraveled. MS NOW reported:

A federal judge has quashed the Justice Department’s subpoenas targeting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, according to a court filing unsealed Friday — a major blow to the Trump administration’s criminal investigation into the central bank’s leader.

In a remarkable decision, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that ‘a mountain of evidence’ suggested that ‘the Government served these subpoenas on the [Federal Reserve] Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning.’ Boasberg added that federal prosecutors ‘produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime,’ calling the Trump administration’s case ‘so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.’

....Broadly speaking, there are a few elements to consider as the dust settles on the ruling and the White House weighs its future options.

First, the president really ought to be asking himself right now whether it was a smart move to tap a former Fox News host to serve as the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital. Jeanine Pirro’s failed effort against Powell was humiliating, but it coincided with a similarly humiliating effort to indict Democratic veterans in Congress who advised service members to follow the law, which coincided with a separate failed criminal investigation into Joe Biden.

In fact, Pirro’s office has lost so many closely watched cases with such regularity that it’s been challenging to keep up with them.

Second, in an unusual press conference following the apparent demise of her case against Powell, the Republican prosecutor made little effort to claim she had evidence of wrongdoing, but said she wanted to go after the Fed chair anyway, just in case some undetermined crimes might have been committed......

As the press conference started to wrap up, Pirro was asked about the frequency of federal grand juries rejecting her efforts. Her furious response offered fresh evidence that she’s ill-suited for the position she’s in.

Pirro: CUT IT OUT!!! I’ll tell you what’s historic! I'm willing to take a not guilty. I'm willing to take a not true bill. Because I'll take all the crimes and put them in

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2026-03-13T19:56:17.573Z

Finally, there’s the road ahead. Given the circumstances, there’s a silver lining for the White House to the rejection of the baseless case against Powell: The sooner this case goes away, the easier it will be for Senate Republicans to move forward with Kevin Warsh’s nomination to succeed Powell. All Pirro had to do was accept Friday’s outcome, scrap plans for an appeal and move on to other priorities.

The prosecutor instead signaled plans for the opposite path, which dovetailed with the president publishing a hysterical tirade to his social media platform, condemning Boasberg and accusing Powell of wrongdoing in the vaguest ways possible.