You may know Jeanine Pirro as the boozy, bombastic Fox News Trump fluffer but she had a whole career before Roger Ailes rescued her. On paper it looks like good qualifications for a US Attorney for DC — former judge and prosecutor — but there’s oh so much more to it.
Long before she was a Fox News host who pushed pro-Trump election conspiracy theories, Jeanine Pirro was an ambitious New York politician whose career stalled after she was recorded plotting to bug her then-husband’s boat to catch him in an affair.
The revelation rocked Pirro’s campaign for New York attorney general nearly 20 years ago, resulting in days of front-page headlines in the city’s tabloids (“BUG THIS LOVE BOAT!” blared the Daily News cover).
The conversation took place in 2005 between Pirro and the former commissioner of the New York Police Department, Bernard Kerik, a close ally of Rudy Giuliani’s.
“What am I supposed to do, Bernie? Watch him f— her every night?” Pirro said, according to a transcript obtained by WNBC-TV’s Jonathan Dienst in 2006. “What am I supposed to do? I can go on the boat. I’ll put the f—–g thing on myself.”
The incident is likely to receive renewed attention now that Pirro is President Donald Trump’s pick to be the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Her selection came after the president withdrew the nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin, whose defense of Jan. 6 rioters was criticized by some Republican senators.
In announcing Pirro as his choice for Martin’s replacement, Trump described her as “in a class by herself.” He’s right in one sense: No other U.S. attorney nominee is known to have come under federal investigation after being caught on tape scheming to catch a cheating spouse in the act.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York confirmed the existence of an investigation into Pirro at the time, but no charges were brought. Pirro was the district attorney of Westchester County when she was caught on tape talking to Kerik, who was under investigation by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.
She really is perfect for the job. And now that they axed Ed Martin (who will now be at the DOJ focused like a laser on getting revenge for the 2020 election) there is no way the GOP Senate will have the courage to defy Trump again. So she’s in.