Long before it was a Fox News presenter who pushed the theories of Electoral Conspiracy Pro-Trump, Jeanine Pirro was an ambitious policy of New York whose career stagnated after she was recorded conspiring to bother her boat of her then husband to catch him in an adventure.
The revelation shook the Pirro campaign for the New York Attorney General almost 20 years ago, which resulted in days of first -end headlines in the city’s tabloids (“Error this love ship!”
The conversation took place in 2005 between Pirro and the former commissioner of the New York Police Department, Bernard Kerik, a nearby ally by Rudy Giuliani.
“What are I supposed to do, Bernie? Look at him f — She every night?” Pirro said, according to a transcription obtained by Jonathan Diest of WNBC-TV in 2006. “What are I supposed to do? I can go to the boat. I will wear the thing of F —— G in myself.”
It is likely that the incident receives renewed attention now that Pirro is the election of President Donald Trump to be the interim prosecutor of the United States for Washington, DC, his selection occurred after the president withdrew the nomination of the conservative activist Ed Martin, whose defense of the rufflers of January 6 was criticized by some Republican senators.
By announcing Pirro as his choice for Martin’s replacement, Trump described it as “in a single class.”
He is right in a sense: it is not known that any other candidate for the United States prosecutor has been under a federal investigation after being caught in a tape scheme to catch a spouse deception in the spot.
The United States prosecutor for the Southern District of New York confirmed the existence of a Pirro investigation at that time, but no charges were presented.
Pirro was the Westchester County District prosecutor when she was captured on a film talking to Kerik, who was investigated by the Bronx district prosecutor’s office. At that time, he was preparing for a race against the then new York Senator Hillary Clinton.
Suspicions of an adventure
According to WNBC, Pirro believed that her then husband, Albert Pirro, was using the 26 -foot boat of the family, the Christie, named for the couple’s daughter, for sexual quotes with her then member. Pirro seemed to feel frustrated that an employee of Kerik’s security firm was reluctant to plant a recording device in the container.
“We can simply say, if there is a problem, that I am redecorating it for our anniversary,” said Pirro, according to WNBC.
“But Jeanine, I’m having the same problem with everyone,” Kerik supposedly replied. “Everyone is affected by panic because it is you. I have left a limb. I had two other people looking at this. It is a problem.”
At a press conference after the WNBC report came out, an emotional pirro criticized federal research as a “taxpayer’s money waste”, but did not deny the substance of conversations
“I said many things, but what matters is what I did and did not do, and what I did was vent,” Pirro said.
Pirro finally left the race after the surveys showed that he had few chances of defeating Clinton in the very democratic state of New York.
His subsequent campaign for the New York Attorney General was also seen as a uphill battle despite his name recognition. And two months after the revelation of the tapes, he lost his career against the future Governor Andrew Cuomo in a landslide, marking the end of his political career.
What happened in the next two decades is well known. Pirro became a television star and one of Trump’s most burning defenders.
In 2020, he repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories in his Fox News program on Trump’s electoral loss. In the course of the litigation presented by Dominion Voting Systems, it was revealed that Pirro executive producers sent a forceful evaluation of one of their monologues to superiors: “This is completely crazy.”
The evolution of Pirro of a district prosecutor who was ever prepared to a Trump reinforcement that is due to the elections reflects the trajectory of other Maga figures, especially Giuliani.
Douglas Muzzio, a retired political science professor at Baruch College with a wide knowledge of New York policy, said it seems “unfathomable” that Pirro is now on the way to directing one of the most important federal prosecutors offices in the country.
“If you had told me 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, that she would be in the position in which she is being put now, she would not believe it,” Muzzio said. “There were many more people with whom I was familiar with the reputation that deserved the work more in terms of qualifications than Pirro.”
The efforts to get to Pirro through the Department of Justice and the White House were not successful. (A Fox News spokesman said she was no longer used there).
Kerik did not respond to a request for comments.
Republican party star
In the 1990s, Pirro was seen as a rising star in the Republican party.
She was the first woman to be chosen as a judge and district fiscal in Westchester County. His telegonic appearance and his distinctive speech made it natural on television.
He developed a reputation as an aggressive prosecutor, but over the years he was also pursued for reports of mafia ties and forced to deal with a stream of scandals that involve his ex -husband.
Albert Pirro, a rich entrepreneur and republican fund collector, was sentenced for charges of fiscal conspiracy and evasion in 2000, and sentenced to 29 months in a federal prison. The trial shed light on the luxurious lifestyle of the couple, the Daily News reported at that time, in which Albert Pirro “He wrote the repairs of the holiday houses, the fees of the field club, the paintings, the luxury cars,” including two ferraris, “and one fence for the family’s belly pigs of the family.”
Five years later, The Daily News published a report that a main lieutenant of the Gambino crime family was captured in a FBI Wirtap alleging that Albert Pirro had discussed one of his wife’s pending cases with an associate of the mafia.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan investigated the claim, but no charges were filed.
Albert Pirro denied that such conversation took place, and Jeanine Pirro told The News in 2005: “I was surprised. It seemed incredible.”
Later that same year, Jeanine Pirro’s campaign received another blow when the Daily News reported that six donors with ties with organized crime had written almost $ 12,000 in campaign checks since 2003.
“We will take a look at the facts and make the appropriate case decisions,” said his campaign spokesman at that time.
But those scandals paid compared to Kerik’s conversation tapes.
Kerik’s telephone was annoying as part of an investigation for accepting free renovations in his department of a contractor with alleged mafia links while he was commissioner of the New York City Corrections Department. Finally, he declared himself guilty of two minor crimes.
After the transcription of his phone call with Pirro, Kerik’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, told the Daily News: “Bernie spoke with a friend in trouble regarding a domestic conflict. Nothing illegal was discussed and nothing illegal was done.”
At that time, Pirro’s husband issued a statement through his lawyer: “Al Pirro is outraged by the conduct of the United States prosecutor at the launch of a federal investigation into a private marital dispute.”
Pirro separated from her husband in 2007. She was forgiven by Trump in 2021.
Trump also forgave Kerik after serving three years in prison for federal tax fraud and making false statements.
In his conversation with Kerik, Pirro regretted how his then husband was impacting his political career.
Without him, she said: “I moved to the governor’s mansion.”
