President Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox News star Jeanine Pirro, reported on social media that her office is in the possession of “the largest Martian meteorite in the world.”
As seen in the video below, the former judge said: “We have seized it as part of the work that we do in the United States Attorney’s Office.”
Pirro added, “It comes from Africa,” and said her assistant U.S. Attorneys are trying “to figure out legitimately where did it come from and who owns it.”
According to Pirro, her team investigated and said they found out “this thing’s going back and forth, maybe it hit the Sahara Desert, maybe it’s from Niger. Maybe it’s from Morocco. Somebody bought it in Italy. A lot of people have had their hands on it.”
Pirro then said: “But the truth is that we don’t know who owns it, so we own it now. We have seized it.” Pirro said her office plans to file a forfeiture action and gain government title to the property.
I present the largest Martian meteorite in the world. A lot of people have had their hands on it, but no one knew who owned it. Before it could be sold at auction, my office seized it.
Now, it belongs to the United States. pic.twitter.com/ZCXRVSD7gs
— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) September 8, 2026
Pirro said her office seized the meteorite in July and added, “We wasted no time. The thing came from Mars. Everybody says they own it. Customs says they have no record of it ever coming into the United States. So guess what?” Pirro leaned in close to the meteorite and added, “The United States government owns it now. So eat that all you guys who tried to do a corrupt deal, and sell this largest known meteorite in history.”
Pirro didn’t provide the details regarding the alleged “corrupt deal,” but in August 2025, PBS reported that the 54-lb. meteorite was sold for more than $5 million at a New York auction the month before. The country of Niger, where the rock was discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2023, launched an investigation into what it called possible “illicit international trafficking,” claiming it may have been smuggled out of the country.
[NOTE: Under the UNESCO convention on cultural property — which can include rare minerals and meteorites — Niger needs to prove it owned the meteorite and that it was stolen in order to get it back. According to Patty Gerstenblith, a cultural heritage lawyer and expert on illicit trade, “If the meteorite was not stolen and if it was properly declared upon import into the U.S., then it would not seem that Niger can recover the meteorite.”]
AP reported that the auction house Sotheby’s said in a statement that “the meteorite was exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedures.”