The Truth About Judge Jeanine Pirro And Donald Trump's Relationship
BY ELIZABETH S. MITCHELL/JAN. 22, 2021
Perhaps the very last act Donald Trump made as president was to pardon Albert Pirro, who was convicted of tax evasion and conspiracy nearly 20 years ago for deducting more than $1 million in personal expenses as "business expenses." Why would Trump use the last hour of his presidency to forgive a white-collar criminal whose greed for money, according to ABC News, has been likened to Richard Nixon's lust for power? While Pirro did donate about $2,000 to the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign in 2020, the pardon likely had less to do with this relatively small donation and a whole lot more to do with who his ex-wife is.
Trump's history with Jeanine Pirro
Donald Trump first became acquainted with the Pirros over 30 years ago when he hired Albert Pirro to serve as a real estate lawyer. At the time, Jeanine Pirro was serving as a Westchester County Court judge, and the couple ran in the same New York City social scene as Trump. Trump remained friends with Judge Pirro over the intervening decades, and long before his own political ambitions, Pirro ran for the Republican senate nomination to oppose Hilary Clinton in 2005. She dropped out of the race, but Trump showed his friendship and support by donating to her campaign at the time, and when she ran the next year to oppose Andrew Cuomo for the New York attorney general seat, he donated to that campaign as well (via Vanity Fair).
She gave up her ambitions of pursuing political office for a TV career, landing a headlining role in CW's reality courtroom show Judge Jeanine Pirro, which was canceled in 2011 just before Pirro signed on with Fox. And in 2016, she wrote a book called Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, which The Washington Post called "the most gushing" of the "sycophantic" books that had come out at the time about the then-new president. Throughout his presidency, Pirro took the president's side and made sometimes-controversial assertions that landed her in hot water even with her network, but nothing deterred her loyalty and her drive to express it on her show (via Vanity Fair).
REVEALED: Fox News' Judge Jeanine lobbied Donald Trump to pardon her ex-husband in dying hours of presidency after she saw he was missing from clemency list
President Donald Trump announced another pardon with less than an hour left in his term
Trump pardoned Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro's fraudster ex-husband Albert Pirro, who used to represent Trump in real estate deals
The White House released Pirro's name as the president was landing in West Palm Beach, as he's skipping President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration
Now CNN reports that 'Judge' Jeanine lobbied Trump directly
Albert Pirro said he was 'surprised' to get the pardon having gone to bed assuming he was not on the list
By NIKKI SCHWAB, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 21 January 2021
Fox News star Jeanine Pirro lobbied Donald Trump on his last morning in office to pardon her fraudster ex-husband, it was reported Thursday.
CNN said that the host was in touch with the president after her ex-husband Albert Pirro - a lawyer who had once represented Trump - was missing from the dozens of pardons issued in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Among those who received clemency were Steve Bannon, Trump's former adviser who was indicted on charges of taking $1m from the privately-funded border wall campaign for his own use.
Albert Pirro had been among those expected to be on the list issued in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
But when he was not, his ex-wife lobbied Trump directly, CNN reported.
He ordered aides to their 'total surprise' to have Pirro pardoned, which left them 'scrambling.'
Ally: Jeanine Pirro has been a vocal defender of Donald Trump, who promoted her book in the Oval Office
President Donald Trump gave a last-minute pardon to Albert Pirro (left) who was previously married to Fox News personality Judge Jeanine Pirro (right). Here the couple is captured leaving court in 2000
Close: Trump's relationship with Jeanine Pirro and her former husband goes back decades. Albert Pirro represented Trump in the 1990s
The outgoing deputy press secretary, Judd Deere, announced the pardon when Air Force One touched down in Florida saying: 'Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a full pardon to Albert J. Pirro, Jr.'
Pirro spent 17 months in federal prison after being convicted in 2000 of $1m in tax frau
Trump ally Matt Schlapp got $750k in unsuccessful pardon push
Lachlan Markay
Matt Schlapp. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The lobbying firm run by Trump ally Matt Schlapp brought in $750,000 in the final two weeks of 2020 from a former top Trump fundraiser and convicted fraudster who retained Schlapp to lobby — unsuccessfully — for a presidential pardon.
Why it matters: The substantial sum that the former fundraiser, Georgia's Parker "Pete" Petit, paid to Schlapp's Cove Strategies shows how valuable connections to Donald Trump were in his final days in office for wealthy felons seeking clemency from the outgoing president.
What's new: Lobbying disclosure records filed on Thursday said Schlapp, a close informal Trump adviser, worked on a "request for a pardon and other public policy issues relating to criminal justice."
The disclosure filing, which covered the last two weeks of 2020, said that Schlapp had contacted just one government office on Petit's behalf: the Executive Office of the President.
Petit was not on the list of the nearly 150 pardons and commutations that the White House released during Trump's final days in office.
Schlapp didn't respond to inquiries about the other policy work he reported performing on the account.
The backstory: Petit, a former Atlanta health care executive, co-chaired the Trump campaign's 2016 fundraising operation in Georgia.
A federal court convicted him of securities fraud in November. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Be smart: A host of federal convicts retained lobbyists to try to win clemency from Trump in his final days. But even the most lucrative lobbying contracts didn't guarantee success.
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